Molly Osborne and Jamie Parker in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Southwark Elephant London. Picture: Juan Coolio
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button continues at Southwark Playhouse Elephant London until 1 July 2023.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
What is it about time warps that work so well in musical theatre? Brigadoon, Merrily We Roll Along, The Last Five Years, Back to the Future, Groundhog Day, The Time Traveller’s Wife… Who knew that it could offer such a rich seam?!
Well, there’s definitely something rather special about Jethro Compton and Darren Clark’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It’s a show charged with magical energy that will charm and captivate you, despite – or perhaps aided by – its nonsensical premise. With an intelligently crafted book and some of the best new musical writing for the stage, I defy you to not fall under its spell.
You might’ve caught the show when it first landed on the stage of the Southwark Small back in 2019. With a cast of just five actor-musos, and a crab-trap full of inventiveness, it was an unforgettable production – one of my top shows of the year – and proved to be a sell-out success. I was nervous, then, when I heard that it was being revisited with a larger cast in a larger venue, because I felt it was flawless the first time around. I had nothing to fear.
The basics of the story will likely be known to audiences thanks to the Brad Pitt movie of the same name, but it was in the pages of Collier’s magazine in 1922 that the backwards-ageing Benjamin Button first appeared. He was the creation of F Scott Fitzgerald, but Compton – credited with the book, lyrics, set design and direction of this staged version – borrowed just the premise, dispensing with effectively every other aspect of the story.
Crucially, he transported his musical version to a small fishing village on the north Cornwall coast, and this clever decision undoubtedly set off a chain-reaction of creativity for him, Clark and their super-talented cast of actor-musos.
This Benjamin Button is earthy and elemental – it smells of the sea – with a powerful folk soundtrack channelling Bellowhead, Mumford & Sons and Fisherman’s Friends. It also invokes the Albionic spirit of Jerusalem’s Rooster Byron, albeit much more whimsically. For a musical based on a Fitzgerald short story set in Baltimore (and with music composed by a New Zealander), it’s a dyed in the wool English fairytale that feels like it’s been part of the country’s mythology for centuries.
From the off, the music gets a massive tick. Clark has written a gorgeous score that’s filled with foot-stompers and heart-breakers, and wow, does it all sound fabulous performed by this cast of 12.
After the hauntingly beautiful Cornish-language a capella ‘Rag Ty Yw Tre’, we hear ‘A Matter of Time’ for the first time – an anthemic chant that recurs throughout the show, driving the action forward; it’s a proper earworm of a song that remains stuck in my head. Each number in turn then showcases Clark’s deep understanding of how music can evoke time and place, communicate emotions and advance story through song.
Particularly impressive are ‘A Little Life’, ‘The Moon and the Sea’ and new for this production, ‘The Tide is Comin’ In’, each of them a masterclass in crafting a song.
Directed musically by Mark Aspinall, the ensemble wrangles a massive array of instruments – accordions, penny whistles, spoons, flutes, cornets, trombones, even a french horn, in addition to the drums, guitars, pianos and basses. The soundscape is rich and evocative – but stays consistent with the folkloric charm of the piece. It’s an epic jam session, with everyone juggling multiple instruments and singing flawlessly. And it’s all beautifully balanced in this new Southwark space, too, thanks to Luke Swaffield’s sound design and Autograph’s sound engineering.
There’s another huge tick for the casting, with the 12-strong ensemble bringing to life a vast array of characters. Although credited alphabetically, unofficial top billing goes to the ever-brilliant Jamie Parker as the titular Button – an inspired casting choice, given his ageless looks (just how old is Parker?!). His ageing down from octogenarian to teen reveals Parker’s mastery of his craft, and of course, there’s no questioning his vocal talents.
Also claiming a large chunk of the script is the superb Molly Osborne as Button’s love interest and eventual wife Elowen, and a nod must be given to Philippa Hogg – one of just two original cast members from the 2019 production, along with the impressive Matthew Burns – for her tragic ‘Kraken’s Lullaby’ at the top of the show, one of my highlights.
Completing the line-up is Jonathan Charles, Oongah Cox, Anna Fordham, Damien James, Ann Marcuson, Jack Quarton, Benedict Salter and Tonny Shim.
Compton’s capricious, numbers-obsessed script barely ever gives this lot a moment’s rest, and the same can be said for movement director Chi-San Howard’s spirited choreography. The show’s a touch on the long side – in each act, Button necessarily goes on a journey of self-discovery that he must take in order to come back home to truly find himself – but it’s the shortest 150 minutes of your life. The book is that wonderful mix of comedy and tragedy, and despite the heartbreaking inevitability of it all, it’s utterly compelling, thanks to a script with more twists, turns and knots than a fish net.
In the scaling up of the show from 2019, gone is the delightful puppetry (using items found during a clean-up of Cornwall’s beaches), but without giving too much away, I prefer how this new version tackles Button’s earliest moments. The beachcombing element is still there in Compton’s highly effective set – a few crates suffice as beds, tables and chairs – and in the star-studded fishing nets that hang from the ceiling. Anna Kelsey has also done a fantastic job with the weathered, bottle-green costumes. It’s all terribly inventive.
So, Benjamin Button is a magical, whimsical, heart-wrenching experience, and the show that’s floated to the top of my list of best musicals of the year. I’ve already seen it again since the night I reviewed, and was just as impressed the second time around. It really has affected me in a profound way, perhaps down to me turning 50 a few weeks ago and recently losing my father. ‘We have time… There’s always time’, we are told in the hymn at the end of the show, a reminder that time is our most precious commodity, and that we must make the most of what little we have of it in this life.
Craig Glenday
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