The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button begins in a fishing village in 1918, where a baby is born with the face and body of an old man and the doctor advises the family not to get attached. Benjamin lives. He also, from that day forward, gets younger.

The village decides he is a curiosity and then, mostly, leaves him to it. He works the boats, loses his mother, and meets Elowen, who is the only person willing to take the situation at face value. For a stretch in the middle of his life and hers they are the same age, and everything works. The arithmetic that made that possible is also what takes it away, and both of them can see it coming years in advance.

Jethro Compton wrote the book and directs, with music by Darren Clark and lyrics by both, adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 short story and relocating it to a fishing community on a wild stretch of coast. It came up through a small studio theatre before a larger transfer, and it collected a shelf of British theatre awards on the way.

The company are actor-musicians, playing dozens of instruments between them while performing the story, so the band is the village and the score is folk: fiddles, accordion, close harmony, sea shanties in three parts. Benjamin's ageing is done in plain sight through performance rather than makeup, with the role passed between actors as the years run backwards.

It is a love story with the ending printed on the first page, and it plays that as the point rather than the problem. Everyone in it knows exactly how much time there is, which is the only real difference between them and the audience.