Beautiful Little Fool

Southwark Playhouse Borough

There's a NEW musical on the block! The actor's vocal skills will knock your socks off... but the story does not grab you as much as you would expect.

It's quite clear that this musical intends to move the audience. Whilst the actors do a magnificent job at embodying their characters, there feels like a lack of connection between the story and the audience. The musical is directed by Michael Greif, the book is by Mona Mansour and the music and lyrics are crafted by Hannah Corneu. You do leave the theatre knowing a little more about the famous writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, and now I will be picturing the writer as David Hunter.

This musical follows the relationship of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, how they loved a social life fueled by champagne and parties. Their story is told by their daughter, Scottie, played by Lauren Ward. For this performance, Zelda was played by Amy Parker, who also covers Scottie. When she is not covering, she is part of the ensemble. The songs are strong, and the actors add so much power and colour with their vocal techniques. Whilst this musical is just one act and the duration is an hour and 40 minutes, it does seem to take a while to get to the end point in the last section of the show. So much is jammed into the show, visually and the story iteself.

It is a musical where you leave having learnt something. This review comes from a perspective that has a basic knowledge of the writer, and although there may be moments that audience members who have a deeper knowledge can pick up on, it was not difficult to follow or notice where they make references to his books. Lauren Ward, who plays Scottie, her character leads the story, and the way she delivers her lines does not spoon-feed the audience, but she does make it clear when she is relaying an important element of her story. She paints the life of Fitzgerald and Zelda with her intriguing delivery. David Hunter as Fitzgerald and Parker as Zelda create such an interesting dynamic; their chemistry clearly shows how the characters were like magnets, but also how they clashed. Their voices have different qualities that complement each other. All of the cast have vocal qualities and give the songs a charged power.

At times, there does seem to be a lot going on the stage, which distracts you from the story. The set is designed by Shankho Chaudhuri. Whilst the idea is Scottie arranging her parents' things and being reminded of her memories with them by objects, it would be clearer if she interacted with the surroundings more, to show how it sparks her memories and ignites the path of where the story is going next. There is a lot packed onto the stage, and whilst it gives the impression of a large musical, there is so much to concentrate on that you lose the main things on stage. The set creates an aesthetic, but it does not enrich the story. It would keep the audience focused if there were less to focus on, and it would make you appreciate the moments tailored to symbolise the main elements of the couple's story. However, the lighting designed by Ben Stanton does help to highlight to the audience where their attention is supposed to be. One playful moment that was fun for the audience was when Hunter Fitzgerald used the typewriter as an instrument, which added great quality to the music and also showed how fixated on his writing he was.

This musical has many interesting qualities that stand out, but the character arcs and developments don't seem to translate to the audience. The idea of Scottie revisiting her parents' home and going through their story, then, because she has relived their tale, she understands them more and is healed, seems a little cliché and predictable. Whilst the idea is that she is telling the story to the audience, the interactions between her and her parents seem to confuse the story's tense. It makes more sense when she is playing herself in the past, but when she interacts with them in the present, while it's clearly her mind, it just becomes confusing. The music is wonderful, the story is interesting, but it just clearly seems like a musical biography, and you feel like you are reading the show, but not connecting with the characters. It's like a whistle-stop tour of the couple's life. This could be an emotive piece if it were clear at the end what is going on, but the story gets confused and goes in so many different directions that it's hard to digest the content.

The musical is beautiful; it has so many qualities that the audience can really appreciate, but it just seems pack a lot into an hour 40 that gets very confusing. It has the potential to be incredible and is a story that the audience may not be familiar with, so being able to learn something about the famous writer is such a great idea! The idea of creating a connection with him and not just focusing on his stories is brilliant. I'm interested to see how the new musical develops.