THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON • LONDON
★★★★★☆
Photo: Marc Brenner
REVIEW BENJAMIN BUTTON THE MUSICAL: A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH IN THE WEST END
Something as rare as a folk musical has made headlines and garnered many starred reviews in serious, critical English media such as The Guardian, Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has even been called the best British musical in decades.
Thus, piqued with curiosity, I turned my nose towards the Ambassadors Theatre (just opposite iconic restaurant The Ivy) and found a diamond in the rough that surprised with a beautiful, wistful story, wonderful musicality and a raw, dramatic/visual expression that showed what the musical genre is also capable of.
Photo: Marc Brenner
The musical is a creatively ‘reformulated’ stage adaptation of the 2008 American romantic film, starring Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett. The story is by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who also wrote The Great Gatsby, for example.
(A large-scale musical version of The Great Gatsby is coming off Broadway and will be staged at the London Coliseum, opening in April 2025 and will be worth a visit, but that’s another story).
I think you’re already familiar with the extraordinary story of BB – the man who ages backwards. Benjamin Button is born old and gets younger and younger as the years go by.
Photo: Marc Brenner
The staging is set in your mind’s eye of a windswept, chilly, northern English fishing village in a harbor quay setting with heavy planks, rough ropes and large, stretched fishing nets.
On stage we find 12 actors who are also musicians in a surprisingly cool rendezvous of violin, cello, guitars, accordion, piano, trombone and percussion, which impressively sends you through the story’s touching love story in a well-timed mix of song numbers and short monologues that tie things together.
As always in London, it’s all executed to a marvelous quality, with the oddity of the show’s total absence of musical bling, replaced by Northern English/Irish sounding folk music.
Photo: Marc Brenner
It swings like crazy with its sailor-like, largely unison choruses, only with the third or fifth dubbed on top. The soundtrack is impressively original and the audience in the sold-out Ambassadors theatre is ecstatic.
Photo: Marc Brenner
You might think it sounds crazy fun with a man who is born old and gets younger with age.
In reality, the action is incredibly sad.
It is surprisingly sad to experience how a person passes through life with family, friendships, love and sanity slowly leaving him. Like walking down a staircase that everyone else is walking up. Check out the trailer here.
Benjamin Button as a musical is a truly beautiful and deeply original experience that scores five stars from GOT TO SEE THIS.
