The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button musical – London reviews

"A match for the movie? This joyful musical is far better"

"Relocated to Cornwall, this lyrical adaptation ... unlocks far greater meanings than David Fincher’s film managed"

"The show’s open-hearted lyricism achieves a truly warming glow, the likes of which we may not have seen since the Tony-winning Once, over a decade ago."

"Philippa Hogg makes a soaring, spine-tingling dirge out of “A Mother’s Love”, one of many songs here that starts small and swells into an epic. Matthew Burns is the vigorous king of the band, and Anna Fordham is puckishly endearing as the son who will overtake his own father’s age before long."

"The entire vibe is a foot-tapping Cornish ceilidh slowing down for shanties – exuberant, but also deeply melancholic. The scruffy wooden set is ideal at suggesting tavern interiors, dockyards and ship decks all at once."

"The evening’s emotional peaks depend increasingly on co-star Clare Foster, in an astonishingly radiant turn as Elowen"

"She manages it all – a rowdy essence of youth, all hand-on-hip flirtatiousness, and then the sad business of growing older, braving more than one tragedy without a life partner who can stay in sync."

"Foster’s soulfulness is infectious; her every shining glance at Benjamin makes this fable more romantic, more persuasive, and quickens its pulse. The musical’s creators, Jethro Compton and Darren Clark, haven’t just breathed new life into a literary gimmick but unlocked meanings I never guessed it could have."

"The West End’s best new show is joyous and life-affirming"

"The West End's best new musical in years is joyous and life-affirming, with laughs and tears throughout."

"Here is where this musical is at its best, with a glorious collection of joyous and life-affirming songs by Jethro Compton and Darren Clark that ring and radiate throughout the auditorium as characters swill back beer while dancing to the various folk songs and sea shanties."

"This heartwarming musical is a real treat and a great discovery, whether the story grabs your initial interest or not. You’ll beam at the familiar joys, tear up at the tragedies we face in life. Most of all, you'll be filled up and want to go back again and again."

"Wildly improbable yet thoroughly enchanting"

"Beautiful central performances from John Dagleish as the gentle Benjamin and Clare Foster as the luminous Elowen deliver the emotional truths in the story. At heart, this is a tender tale about the urge to belong and the brevity of life."

"The superb musical ensemble delivers this outlandish tale with the relish of seasoned storytellers on a storm-tossed night. Sharing the narrative and moving in and out of character, they propel the action with Darren Clark’s gorgeous, richly orchestrated and evocative songs, which range from mournful delicacy to full-bodied, foot-stomping zip. It’s like being present at a particularly riotous lock-in."

"Jethro Compton’s folky Cornish musical sweeps into the West End with fiddles and fudge"

"This folk musical, brought to swarming life by actor-musicians, opened at the small, enterprising Southwark Playhouse Elephant five years ago; now it has landed in the West End"

"Actor-musicians weave between each other – Chi-San Howard’s choreography is dextrous – whisking around cornet, double bass, french horn, fiddle, ukulele, accordion like playthings; even the cello is bowed without touching the floor."

"Still, the story is overcrammed – war, suicide, lost love, the death of a child, rediscovered love, terminal illness – and not always clear. Though John Dagleish is strong and touching in the title role – slowly unbending from his early days as a septuagenarian babe with a walking stick – there is no single knockout song that defines his or others characters. It’s a wave-like movement, a constant musical surge – more jig than gig – that sweeps the evening along. Warmly. Curiously."

"this musical touches the heart"

"F Scott Fitzgerald’s parable about an old man growing young relocates to Cornwall in this clever reboot...touchingly played by John Dagleish"

"Clare Foster is superbly affecting as the headstrong Elowen, the love of his life. If you weren’t won over by the Hollywood version of the tale, starring Brad Pitt, rest assured this musical really does touch the heart."

"warm and winsome musical tugs at the heartstrings"

"this is a vivacious yet touching show"

"John Dagleish ... gives a moving performance combining the physicality of an old man with the expressions of an abandoned child. Philippa Hogg sings a searingly dark lullaby."

"The musical energy that accompanies Button’s backwards biography shivers the timbers of the barnacle-encrusted set. Clare Foster’s Elowen is sassy, self-assured and stunningly voiced, and the ensemble’s close harmonies and string-instrument shenanigans have us pitching and rolling between comic capers and the underlying sadness of Button’s condition."

"The production’s full-bore approach to emotion is reminiscent of Come from Away; there are times when it substitutes pure sentiment for satisfying narrative structure, particularly in the second act as Button faces the unavoidably human experiences of loss and grief. Sometimes the fiddle tunes begin to blend into each other, too, although A Little Life may stick in your head like a mackerel in a net."

"Forget Brad Pitt’s film — this is the version to treasure"

"This oddball, charming musical is a stirring folkie adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s short story"

"The atmosphere is like a ceilidh – or the West Country equivalent – during a pub lock-in. On a set of ropes and timbers, a 13-strong cast of joyfully versatile actor-musicians give vent to moving, witty songs that swell like the ocean. Feet are stamped and tubs are enthusiastically thumped."

"a sweet love story that carries a powerful, almost mystical musing on the nature of existence. "

"The book smartly juxtaposes the smallness and localness of the story with epic international (and extra-planetary) events. The love story of Benjamin and Elowen (played with understated conviction by Dagleish and Clare Foster) is couched as a meeting of the moon and the sea, subject to massive fluctuations of time and tide."

"extraordinary... it has a joy, romance and big-hearted elan"

"This surging Cornwall-set folk-musical adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's supernatural story is deeply moving"

"an extraordinary thing, a soaring folk opera that overwhelms you with a cascade of song and feeling"

"despite tragic notes from the off – Benjamin’s mum takes her own life early on – the tone is largely whimsical and upbeat, focussing on the eccentric minutiae of Cornish village life, from oddball shopkeepers to dozy sheep."

"It’s very good, but the last ten minutes or so are actively sublime, as the final years of Benjamin’s mad existence unspool with an elegiac poetry that had me teetering dangerously close to tears."

"Sure-fire West End hit"

"The joyous homegrown British musical has a warm heart and a thrummingly tuneful score"

"What a joyous thing it is to watch a homegrown British musical wend its careful way from nurturing fringe theatres to the West End and beyond."

"Impressive...a cosy, cockles-warming treat"

"John Dagleish... bashful and charming ... Clare Foster... vivacious"

"Set in an early-to-mid 1900s Cornish fishing village, it’s atmospheric, with fishing nets and buoys hanging above a wooden, dock-like stage. Darren Clark’s folksy score is studded with Clark and Compton’s sea shanty-style songs, and there’s a determinedly upbeat essence to the music that prevents the bittersweet story from ever dwelling in its darkness."

"It’s a story of a life lived in reverse, but also one of finding home – and the West End seems just the right resting place for Compton’s loveable creation."

"The critic’s dilemma: what if you’re sitting next to the star’s mum?"

"I was bored watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, so I wrestled with the question of being mean or being honest"

"... what can I say? I found the play insufferably cute when I first saw a five-performer version at the Southwark Playhouse in 2019 and enjoyed it only a little more now that it’s got a cast of 13 and higher production values."

"Yet I find this Benjamin Button overbearing in the way it ladles on its themes. The ageing conceit remains notional rather than tangible since Benjamin never looks all that old or all that young."

"It’s all a bit neat. There’s not a bad song here, but nor is there a really great one. And virtuosic as the playing is, the reliance on narration from the smilingly supportive ensemble can feel like being ambushed by a Christian folk group. Worst — and most subjective — of all, it feels as if the characters are only there to serve the tender themes rather than vice versa, so I was never moved."