The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: An Unordinary Musical at Ambassadors Theatre

When it comes to prior adaptations of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story, those only familiar with the Brad Pitt vehicle may be taken aback by director, book writer and lyricist Jethro Compton’s effervescently Cornish musical adaptation. Re-located from the original text’s Baltimore to a Cornwall harbour-pub-homestead in 1918, the other most immediately striking thing about this re-invented Benjamin Button is its sense of bustling communality.

On the face of it, Fitzgerald’s is the story of a man in solitude, either too early or too late for much of his own life, and destined in time to lose all memory or comprehension of the unordinary life he lived from old age to infancy. In Compton’s vision, however, Button (played throughout by John Dagleish, who effortlessly projects the gentle sageness of a very old man and the vibrating, anxious naivete of a very young one, often simultaneously) is scarcely alone at all, flanked by a Greek chorus that alternates as narrators, a full onstage band and a revolving ensemble whose members take on multiple roles throughout, with an assist from Anna Kelsey’s effortlessly evocative costuming. The play is almost never without the shanty-like accompaniment of these Strangers, instilling the cosy sense that we are being regaled with Button’s story on the barstool, discovering it in the midst of the communal act of its telling.

The result is irresistibly light of touch and ancient feeling all at once, Compton and composer Darren Clark’s lyrics both unassuming enough to seem thrown away and stingingly bittersweet enough to seem like they’ve always been there. “Oh, what I’d give for the little life I’d live,” Button longingly declares, as he contemplates rebellion against the father who fears and loathes the outwardly elderly man born to him. “Proving your old man wrong is every young man’s right”.

When Button finds what will be the great romantic drive of his backwards-moving life, the barmaid Elowen Keene (Clare Foster), one almost wishes the music would cease for a moment or two, the better for us to sit with the lovebirds’ various triumphs and setbacks. Button’s time lost at sea in particular feels largely skimmed over. Still, come the play’s second act – and the abundance of earned sniffles it brings with it – one almost wishes to retract the request. The winding road of Benjamin and Elowen’s couplings and separations ultimately arrives at a place so warmly, tenderly sad as to make crying into a caress, something one would much rather lean into than resist. The same can be said for the whole play, a retooling of a cynical story into something so unabashedly earnest that it ought to induce toothache, but that never does. Compton and his collaborators’ Benjamin Button comes by its sweetness and ebullient good cheer honestly, which may be the trickiest feat to which a musical can lay claim.

Ultimately, this reinvented Benjamin Button finds new life in the story by situating one man’s journey within a communal context. His story is shared and passed around amongst everyone onstage, until we feel no less a part of it ourselves. Those who surrender may leave with cheeks moistened and dispositions just that little bit rosier, which may mark a small theatrical miracle in itself.

Thomas Messner
Photo: Marc Brenner

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: An Unordinary Musical is at Ambassadors Theatre from 10^th October 2024 until 15^th February 2025. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.