Beautiful Little Fool
After two musical adaptations of The Great Gatsby in the last three years, maybe it was inevitable that musical theatre, hungry for a further Fitzgerald fix, would turn to the life of its author F Scott and his wife Zelda. With music and lyrics by American performer Hannah Corneau and a book by Mona Mansour, Beautiful Little Fool tells the story of American literature’s most celebrated and chaotic couple through the exasperated lens of their daughter Frances, an anguished Lauren Ward, as she sifts through their archive on her forty-eighth birthday, having outlived both of her parents – F Scott died aged 46, Zelda aged 47.An impressive set (by Shankho Chaudhuri) fills Southwark Playhouse’s main space, shelves stuffed with books and boxes, staircases sweeping up to a second level. There’s money here, and there’s promise, and there’s a legendary Broadway director, Michael Greif, who helmed the original productions of Rent, Dear Evan Hansen and Next To Normal.
But it all fizzles out so quickly. Because it’s narrated by Frances, the entire musical feels told and not shown, like a Wikipedia page with songs. And those songs rarely earn their place. Corneau’s music is pleasant, but rarely strays beyond four-chord pop. Songs swell with Adam Rothenberg’s rich orchestrations - drum fills, plaintive piano chords, humming bass lines - and when they’re matched with harmonies from the performers it all sounds quite nice. Little flashes of interest come when Corneau breaks away from...