‘Life’s not one of your paintings,” Ami rages at her artist boyfriend, Ben. “You can’t just rip it up and start again.” But what if Ben was in an accident, had amnesia and happened to meet Ami afresh, not remembering their faltering relationship at all? That might provide a new start for both – even if Ami is racked with guilt over not revealing their shared past.
Timothy Knapman and Stuart Matthew Price’s two-hander has a Hollywood-style high concept but their musical romcom is strangely reluctant to run with the premise and quickly becomes overly earnest. Knapman’s book has a good sense of the everyday ebb and flow of relationships yet could use sharper repartee. The occasional goofy humour is seldom matched by his and Price’s lyrics, which drift too often towards the commonplace. Price’s score – well played by musical director Ben McQuigg’s trio (guitar, keys, cello) – can be appealing and amusing but rarely swooning.
As they proved together in Hope Mill’s splendid Cinderella in 2022, Jacob Fowler and Grace Mouat share a great connection and have limpid voices. There is a pleasing openness in their performances as Ben and Ami but, while the story repeatedly bounces from before to after the accident, the characters remain limited and the setup does not deliver the deeper emotional pull and complexity of, say, the musical version of The Time Traveller’s Wife. The pair’s arguments about class and a suspected affair (with a revelation that is easy to see coming) are too brief and you never believe that Ami wouldn’t tell Ben about their relationship when they meet anew.
Some scenes in Georgie Rankcom’s Grey Area production are a delight: the pair’s “meet cute” in a restaurant, where she’s been stood up and he’s the waiter; Ben’s jittery patter song, using a comb as a microphone, before Ami comes to his flat; and the moment when she reclines seductively beneath a tree, only for him to take the opportunity to sketch her portrait. Ben’s development as an artist, and her acclaim as a gallerist, lead to some drab rhapsodising about painting. Nevertheless, Linbury prize winner Yimei Zhao’s elegant, paint-spattered set has an understated charm, its huge framed canvases ready to be coloured with life.
At Southwark Playhouse, London, until 2 March
