This cheerful musical is so much more than a movie

It’s like aging in reverse Benjamin Button F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 article illuminates little on its own; Because this is the exact opposite of everyone’s experience, empathy is unlikely. But for the 12-person acting/singing/strumming troupe to watch what transpires on stage, tears flowing because they are mere mortals, suddenly evoke a rich sense of hubris.

This adaptation first appeared at Southwark Playhouse in 2019 with a five-strong cast, but has grown and grown as instruments, actors and layers have been added. What started as chamber music has now turned into a marine symphony. The show’s frank lyricism reaches a truly heartwarming glow we haven’t seen since the Tony-winning Once more than a decade ago.

David Fincher’s 2008 cold white elephant movie starring Brad Pitt was far less effective than this production in capturing the brevity of human life, despite its 13 Oscar nominations. To quote Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, the scene is beautifully animated to show moments of link counting before they fade away in time.

We begin not in Baltimore à la Fitzgerald, but on the Cornish coast where Benjamin (John Dagleish) was born in 1918. Rather than a wizened baby like Pitt, he turns into a hunched old man with a pipe and a cane. Ignoring the biological implications, we accept this as theatrical shorthand: when he becomes ten years younger, he straightens his posture slightly, puts down the cane, and his co-star moves the pipe away.

Only Benjamin does not have an instrument of his own, which cleverly isolates him from the rhythm and wave of this sea life: The other players switch violins, occasionally switch genders, and create a vibrant sense of community that he can never truly be a part of.

As her tragic mother, Philippa Hogg sings a chilling, chilling lament from “A Mother’s Love,” one of many songs that start small and grow into an epic. Longtime cast member Matthew Burns is the brawny king of the group, and Anna Fordham is sassyly adorable as the son who will soon outlive his own father.

The whole atmosphere is like a Cornish loft slowing down for the slums; enthusiastic but also extremely melancholic. The scattered wooden set is ideal for suggesting tavern interiors, shipyards and ship decks at the same time. Dagleish, the first person to play Ray Davies in Sunny Afternoon, can’t help but always look around 40 with his sorrowful face, but he genuinely impresses in the role, not the human special effect that Pitt is.

The emotional highs of the night depend increasingly on leading lady Clare Foster; this in a surprisingly brilliant turn as Elowen, the saloon girl with whom the wrinkly Benjamin shyly falls in love. It overcomes everything; the boisterous spirit of youth, the womanizing with hands on hips, and then the sad work of growing old, enduring multiple tragedies without a life partner who can stay in harmony.

Foster’s emotionality is infectious; Every bright glance she casts at Benjamin makes this tale more romantic, more convincing, and makes her pulse quicken. The musical’s creators, Jethro Compton and Darren Clark, not only breathed new life into a literary trick, but also unlocked meanings I never would have guessed.

Until February 15, 2025; theambassadorstheatre.co.uk