Theatre night:The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I've never read the 1922 short story about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and neither have I seen the 2008 film. In fact I didn't even know the tale had been written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and I thought the film was directed by Tim Burton which it isn't. It's David Fincher. So my visit, last night, to London's Ambassadors Theatre to see the play, in the form of a musical, was my first encounter with Mr Button and his curious case.

Of course, I knew the basic premise. A man is born old and then grows younger and younger, living his life backwards. A magical realist tale if ever there was one. But that's all I knew about it. I didn't know if it was funny or sad or both (spoiler alert - it's both) and I had no idea how it ended or what happened along the way. Turns out - quite a lot.

Jethro Compton and Darren Clark's musical reimagining of the story has been transferred to a Cornish fishing village (cue an impressive stage set of nets, rigging, rotting piers, and various others items of nautical paraphernalia and cue a couple of product placements - though one was for Proper Job IPA from the St Austell Brewery and they had a special offer on at the bar so it seemed rude not to) and moved forward a few decades from the original story.

Our Benjamin Button (played, brilliantly, by John Dagleish) is born, fully clothed - with glasses and a hat, in 1919 to parents who, to put it lightly, aren't exactly overjoyed by their new arrival. Benjamin's a resilient sort though and once he leaves the room he's basically been imprisoned in he goes to the pub, gets excited about space rockets, buys his first television, falls in love, gets married, has kids, runs away to America, fights in World War II, and learns a lot of lessons about life and love.

It could be twee and in some places it is. But at other times it is genuinely moving. I even felt a tear forming in the corner of my eye at one point but then I am, at heart, a complete and utter softy. The music, a kind of Cornish folk created with guitars, trumpet, organ, and tin whistle, as well as a drummer on a very impressive riser), is rousing in places and mournful, reflective, in others. It's so well sang that I could hardly believe so few people were making such a powerful sound.

While the story tackles themes of war, unrequited love, and even suicide it does also take in the very specific problems that may arise if you find yourself older than your own father and younger than your own children (even grandchildren) and it handles these questions very adroitly. Benjamin Button is a good man who only wants the best for those around him but because of his uniquely peculiar predicament it seems inevitable he will end up hurting those he loves the most. 

Will there be anything he can do about that? That will be his life's quest and as he grows younger and younger it seems he's beginning to find the answers. Just as those around him grow older and older. What is both interesting and touching is that, despite his own unique narrative, he experiences things in much the same way as the rest of us and snatched moments of joy - holding his child's hand, sitting on the beach with his wife, a joke with a much loved friend - prove the key to life's happiness. For a tale that is unsurprisingly tragic in places, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - at least in this musical iteration - is a hugely positive, if bittersweet in places, experience.