Benjamin Button Brilliantly Conceived!
“There are plenty of girls in the sea!”
Little Jack
Jethro Compton and Darren Clark are responsible for many of the creatives on this delightful and new to the West End musical. It has obviously been a labour of love and they can be truly proud of the resulting and charming production. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is based on the 2008 film which starred Brad Pitt about a man who is born as an old man and who progressively through his life gets younger rather than aging. The original was by F Scott Fitzgerald.
The story has been transposed to the fishing villages of Cornwall; the company is a vital and vibrant band of actor musicians who narrate and enliven the story. I was really struck by how talented the cast were, playing their instruments for a party atmosphere but also taking individual roles. Their lively movement is choreographed by Chi-San Howard and they individually speak the story when it isn’t sung.
They have a real star in John Dagleish who I have seen play Ray Davies in Sunny Afternoon and Spike Milligan in SPIKE. It is no mean feat that he arrives at his birth in 1918 as a gnarled old man needing a walking stick and crouched over at 70 years of age. The midwife Morwena Keene (Anna Marcuson) is as horrified as are his parents Roger Button (Benedict Salter) and Mary Button (Philippa Hogg). Their consolation is that they don’t think that this old man will live very long.
The shame is such that Mary Button throws herself off a Cornish cliff leaving Roger Button to hide Benjamin in a tiny room at the top of the house. He isn’t allowed outside the house for 10 years when at age 59 he ventures out to the local pub, the Pickled Crab where he meets the love of his life, the beautiful barmaid Elowen Keene (Clare Foster) who happens to be the midwife’s daughter.
Elowen and Benjamin do get together but are faced with the problem of the discrepancy in their age; as she gets older, he gets younger. They go off in different directions with Benjamin landing a job as a sailor with the Trenlee family of fishermen. He bonds with Little Jack (Jack Quarton) who has a delightful turn of phrase with metaphors with the wrong noun like “there are plenty more girls in the sea”. Benjamin and Little Jack work together from Newlyn aboard the “Salty Maze”. Jago Trenlee is played by Damien James who has a terrific deep voice.
The music style is like folk and country with some wonderful lyrics from Compton and Clark. Time and Tide are themes throughout. In 1944, Benjamin reconnects with Elowen where she remarks that he looks younger and refers to Dorian Gray’s picture in the attic.
John Dagleish is absolutely brilliant in his characterisation of Benjamin Button creating such a sympathetic personality that we all warm to. He also has a magnificent singing voice often with a single instrument accompaniment. Clare Foster is vocally a match for Dagleish and their chemistry works together. They have children and get married but there is a tragedy which cuts deep.
Jethro Compton’s set is redolent of a Cornish fishing with fishing nets, ropes, weathered wooden bollards and pulleys. The lyrics are also about the natural elements in this fishing area, the wind, the sea, the waves, the moon and the tides.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a beautifully crafted musical for the whole family with one man making the best of the reverse life he has been given. I have no hesitation in awarding it 5 stars from Theatrevibe, the theatre site that doesn’t do stars.
Editor of TheatreVibe.co.uk
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Musical Numbers
Act One
Rag Ty Yw Tre
The Western Wind
The Kraken’s Lullaby
A Little Life
Underscore
When E’re She looked At Me
Matter Of Time I
The Moon And The Sea
Will You Go?
Underscore
Home
Underscore
Home (Reprise)
Shippin’ Out Tomorrow
Act Two
The Western Wind (Reprise)
The Tide Is Comin’ In
Matter Of Time II
The Tide Is Comin’ In (Reprise)
Rollin’ Away
Rollin’ Away (Reprise)
The Kraken’s Lullaby (Reprise)
Underscore
Home (Reprise)
Time
Underscore
A Little Life (Reprise)
The Kraken’s Lullaby (Reprise)
The Western Wind (Reprise)
Rag Ty Yw Tre (Reprise)
Rollin’ Away (Reprise)
Production Notes
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Original short story by F Scott Fitzgerald
Adapted by Jethro Compton
Book by Jethro Compton
Music by Darren Clark
Lyricist Darren Clark and Jethro Compton
Directed by Jethro Compton
Cast
Starring:
John Dagleish,
Clare Foster
Creatives
Director: Jethro Compton
Choreographer: Chi-San Howard
Set Designer: Jethro Compton
Costume Designer: Anna Kelsey
Musical Supervisor : Darren Clark, Mark Aspinall
Lighting Designer: Zoe Spurr
Sound Designer: Luke Swaffield
Musical Director: Mark Aspinal
Information
Running Time: Two hours 30 minutes with an interval
Booking until 15th February 2025
Theatre:
Ambassadors Theatre
West Street
London WC2H 9ND
Phone: 03330 096 690
Website: theambassadorstheatre.co.uk
Tube Leicester Square
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge at the
at the Ambassadors Theatre
on 6th November 2024
