The Time Traveller’s Wife Reviews

"The singers are better than the songs"

"This romance — scripted by that accomplished American playwright Lauren Gunderson — leaps back and forth through different eras, making nonsense of conventional chronology. Captions announcing the ever-changing ages of the lovers — played by Joanna Woodward and David Hunter — in this unlikely tale give you only a tenuous sense of where you are."

"Fans of the book won’t mind at all, but they will probably wish that the pop stars Joss Stone and Dave Stewart had come up with a more memorable clutch of melodies."

"The good news is that Hunter and Woodward make an endearing couple. He’s particularly good at injecting a smidgin of comedy into a narrative that, in the very last scenes, becomes genuinely affecting. And in the second half Woodward gets the chance to deliver I’m in Control, an R&B-tinged song that finally delivers some emotional heft."

"Joss Stone and Dave Stewart’s musical adaptation of the hit time-travel novel is breezy, undemanding fun"

"The casting is a tremendous help: both Hunter and Woodward are essentially loveable goofs. They‘re funny and watchable and for all the icky implications of Henry visiting a prepubescent Clare (played by a rotating series of child actors), it feels about as wholesome as a middle-aged man visiting an underage girl he’s technically already had sex with was ever going to be."

"The songs, meanwhile, are peppy and upbeat, closer to the brassy soul of Stone’s ’00s heyday than the electro-pop Stewart is known for. It’s also a very talky musical: the songs don’t feel desperately central to it, and the lyrics are often vague and non-specific to the action. Which is fine: if the songs aren’t the focus, they rarely get in the way – the music is more there to keep the momentum going and the vibes up than anything else. Indeed, the biggest problem with ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ is that the first two-thirds slip down too smoothly."

"‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ could be cleverer, more profound, with better songs and a more exciting story. But there’s something about its ease with itself that is beguiling. It’s watchable and fun, and if it’s not a great musical it’s an enjoyable one."

"A gentle new British musical brimming with weirdness"

"Love (and being in a different century) threatens to tear the heroes apart in this sweet but surface-level show, adapted from Audrey Niffenegger’s book with songs by Joss Stone and Dave Stewart"

"It’s a slick creation, with songs by Eurythmics musician Dave Stewart and singer-songwriter Joss Stone, but its breathless pace can’t hide its underlying weirdness."

"David Hunter and Joanna Woodward make a clean-cut, fine-voiced central pairing, but they’re not really given space to fully explore the emotional impact of being trapped in a marriage where nothing is certain, not even being in the same time period for their wedding day."

"... there’s something undeniably impressive about the way that playwright Lauren Gunderson’s book combines with Bill Buckhurst’s nimble direction to turn a complex novel into a neatly paced, always compelling musical. There’s a lot of plot here and she handles it deftly"

"Stone and Stewart’s songs slot neatly into this detailed story. They’re mostly piano and strings-driven, drawing from a more conventional musical palette than you might expect from this pair of composers"

"The Time Traveller’s Wife doesn’t dig into the emotional pain or logistical details of its scenario, but it sparks with moments of emotional intensity, capturing the random cruelties of a universe that brings lovers together, then does all it can to tear them apart."

"Eternal romance is a bumpy ride"

"Joss Stone and Dave Stewart’s strangely forgettable score does little to lift this musical but there are some wonderful set pieces"

"... alongside the safety of adapting a bestseller on stage, there is a degree of chutzpah in theatrically realising a romance with a dizzying temporal complexity and non-chronological narrative."

"This musical incarnation is given stardust by Dave Stewart and Joss Stone, who jointly provide a strangely forgettable mix of rock and pop tunes with wholly pedestrian lyrics."

"There are powerful voices all round even so, especially Hunter and Woodward, along with Tim Mahendran and Hiba Elchikhe as Clare’s high-school friends Gomez and Charisse although they are drawn as broadly comical types."

"... far more exciting second half opens with one of the strongest musical numbers, Journeyman, accompanied by astonishing projection work by Andrzej Goulding which shows Henry crashing though time."

"The story hasn’t aged well – but this’ll have you weeping"

"Although this musical adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s bestselling novel is a little unpalatable, it has moments of real power"

"Film and television iterations of Niffenegger’s novel have struggled and, for much of the first half, it looks as though this show will too."

"Clare’s life progresses in regular chronological style and Bill Buckhurst’s production takes a marked turn for the better when she is anchored in adulthood, meaning she and Henry get married."

"After a choppy start, she and Hunter make for an appealing pairing, convincing us absolutely of Clare and Henry’s troubled but enduring love. The evening is at its best when it’s at its simplest; all sci-fi shenanigans aside, the moral is to make the most of time, as we never know how much we have left."

"Dazzling staging of an unresolved narrative"

"It’s perfectly amiable and enjoyable. But in each incarnation, Niffenegger’s original questions about the nature of love and the difficulties of sustained relationships get stripped back and what’s left is a saccharine story of enduring love. Without the philosophical underpinning, the narrative is uplifting but irritating as the essential difficulties of its time-travelling conceit are never resolved."

"The star of the new show, which has a book by American playwright Lauren Gunderson, is the staging itself. Anna Fleischle’s design is a wonder of flexibility"

"What you are left with are two attractive performances from the leading actors, a charming one from Poppy Pawson, one of several youngsters in different casts playing Clare as a child and her own child Alba, and a staging that dazzles. It’s not quite enough, but it certainly passes the time."

"It’s rather good. Yes, Bill Buckhurst’s production feels hemmed in both by its smallish playhouse stage and by a two-hour running time... Yet in a winningly emotive second half the show clears itself the space to celebrate and mourn the limited time we have with the people we love. The songs get more sophisticated and soaring. The leads are tremendous. I was far from the only audience member still brushing away a tear as the lights came up at the end."

"Verdict: Call a Tardis!"

"While Clare and Henry (played by Joanna Woodward and David Hunter), smile sweetly and sing persuasively... Yet shimmying up and down scales, the music lacks the emotional heft the audience seemed to crave."

"Bill Buckhurst's warm-hearted production features impressive illusions"

"Importantly, Woodward and her time-travelling hubby do enjoy some reasonable chemistry, if not electricity. (Hiba Elchikhe and Tim Mahendran, as Clare's fun-loving friends Chrisse and Gomez, have a bit more crackle.) Is it enough to make this show go intergalactic? I'm not sure. Maybe they should try hailing a Tardis."

"Played for gloopy sentiment and goofy laughs"

"Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 bestseller has been adapted by impressive talent, what a shame it's so bland"

"It’s frankly astonishing that the combined talents of former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, soul artist Joss Stone, and America's "most produced living playwright" Lauren Gunderson should come up with a musical as bland as this."

"In the title role of “paper sculptor” Clare, Joanna Woodward has a strong, rich voice that makes her big number, One Day, one of the few standout songs. As sporadically vanishing hubby Henry, David Hunter has a slap-happy, sitcom cheerfulness, as if regular temporal dislocation were just a mild inconvenience, like the occasional sneezing fit. Together, they have zero chemistry."

"This is weird, potentially mind-bending, existential stuff – and on a granular level the story is about how women cope and men deceive. But here, the two just breeze through life, their icky romance interrupted by the odd row. It’s not even explained how Henry holds down his library job, nor why he doesn’t think of buying a lottery ticket until halfway through."

"That’s one of the problems with this musical (written by Lauren Gunderson with songs by Joss Stone and Dave Stewart) of Audrey Niffenegger’s very popular book. While it takes on a darker hue in the second half, and Clare does eventually lose it with Henry, for much of the time it remains frustratingly saccharine and the music is pretty middle-of-the road."

"The two lead characters seem so bland that you struggle to understand what they see in each other. When friends Gomez (Tim Mahendran) and Charisse (Hiba Elchikhe) are introduced, things liven up — at least they have a bit of sass and scepticism."

"David Hunter makes Henry droll and likeable, and Joanna Woodward, as Clare, has a magnetic stage presence and a wonderful singing voice."

"This saccharine musical is unlikely to stand the test of time"

"Joanna Woodward is a strong lead and the stage effects are super, but Audrey Niffenegger’s novel translates awkwardly into musical theatre"

"Such is the emotional charge of the story that it makes sense, in theory, to tell it in a format where deeper feelings can be expressed through song and dance. But an over-complicated structure, and an unwillingness to fully explore some of the darker dynamics at play, make the romantic arc at the centre of the story hard to fully buy into."

"A time-bending structure can work in more expansive mediums (Audrey Niffenegger’s novel manages to show real emotional growth in characters), but in a two-hour stage production, we struggle to fully enter Clare and Henry’s reality."

"The tonal deficiency is not helped by a score that blends strings and rich piano chords to project incessantly positive, saccharine emotion."

"Woodward is nonetheless a magnetic lead with an irresistible smile and soaring voice, which is able to impart real significance to even the most pedestrian songs. Illusions from Chris Fisher (who also worked on the Harry Potter play) lead to some real gasp-inducing moments"

"Soppy, schmaltzy stuff"

"Musical by Joss Stone and Dave Stewart based on the best-selling time-travel novel is terminally soppy"

"This new musical shoots its Cupid’s arrow straight at the tender heart of that hanky-clutching cohort – but you’d have to be feeling excessively sentimental to succumb to its anodyne appeal. Everything about it, from Joss Stone and Dave Stewart’s MOR pop score to Lauren Gunderson’s colourless book, Bill Buckhurst’s inert direction and Shelley Maxwell’s pedestrian choreography is fuzzy and bland"

"Woodward and Hunter carry off this hokum efficiently enough, and Tim Mahendran and Hiba Elchikhe as Clare’s besties Gomez and Charisse have fine voices. In the end, though, will you be dabbing your eyes or rolling them? Incurable romantics: this one’s all yours."