It started as a BBC radio drama in 2016, and was reworked as a small-scale musical two years ago. Now, A History of Paper gets the mainstage treatment with two bona fide stars in the leads. The good news is that little is overblown about the production. Stars or not, Shirley Henderson and Alan Cumming only bring a greater degree of subtlety to this fragile work.
Written by the late playwright Oliver Emanuel and composer Gareth Williams, it recounts an everyday romance through the medium of paper: the postcard messages, the origami gifts, the Pizza Express receipts, the shopping lists and the confetti. A cardboard box full of such detritus is a neat way to encapsulate both the grand emotions and the ephemera that sustain a love affair. Henderson and Cumming carry it with due lightness.
