What hits you on entering the large space at Southwark Playhouse is Shankho Chaudhuri’s astonishing set: a vertiginous wall of black shelving that climbs towards the roof, with a  balcony and staircases, crammed with books, boxes and the detritus of a literary life. It has height, depth and swagger, and for a moment you feel as if you could happily sit and stare at it all evening.

The conceit of Beautiful Little Fool is that this towering structure houses the archive of F Scott Fitzgerald. The first figure we meet is Scottie (Lauren Ward), Fitzgerald’s daughter, arriving in 1969 to check that her father’s papers are in order. She speaks directly to the audience, brisk and guarded, before summoning her parents, Scott and Zelda into being. Without ever quite leaving the late 60s, we slip back into the 1920s, as the musical hopscotches through time and space.

Scott and Zelda were the celebrity couple of their day: glamorous, reckless, endlessly scrutinised. They drank (lots), they danced, they wrote, and they burned through life at speed and they both died before they were 50, Scott from a fatal heart attack and Zelda in a hospital fire when she was confined to a mental institution and the musical doesn’t shy away from the darker facts of their lives. It also leans into the increasingly recognised idea that Zelda, a writer herself, may have contributed more to Scott’s work than history has allowed.

What distinguishes Beautiful Little Fool is its decision to tell this story not from Scott’s point of view, but from the perspective of the two women orbiting him. Written by Mona Mansour (book) with music and lyrics by Hannah Corneau, it sets out to rebalance the narrative. The intention is admirable, the execution less so. The book feels thin, more a sequence of impressions than a fully developed exploration of these relationships. With 18 songs packed into a brisk 90 minutes, dialogue is sparse and character psychology often sacrificed to momentum.

Corneau’s score veers towards muscular rock, with the occasional ballad offering a pause for reflection. The songs are tuneful and competently crafted, but few linger once the lights come up. Strong performances do much of the heavy lifting. Amy Parker, on understudy duties, is a magnetic Zelda, her powerful voice and ferocious presence dominating the stage. Ward brings a brittle vulnerability to Scottie, while Hunter does what he can with a Scott Fitzgerald who sometimes feels oddly peripheral in his own story. David Austin-Barnes and Jasmine Hackett nimbly fill out the rest of the cast, doubling as supporting characters, backing singers and tireless stagehands bringing on props, a baby and making the bed!

A shout out also the excellent four piece rock band led by Jerome  van den Berghe. I’ve been railing on for ever about how so many musicals are over-amplified and you can’t hear the lyrics. I was fearing the worst as there’s a sign as you enter the auditorium warning you that the band is loud and over 90db (that’s very loud) so I was fearing the worst but Dominic Bilkey’s sound design is spot-on and you could hear every word

A critic once quipped that a show’s songs were so bad he left singing the scenery. Beautiful Little Fool is nowhere near that dire, but it’s telling that Chaudhuri’s set remains its most indelible feature. Polite applause, rather than a standing ovation, greeted the final curtain – a response that suggests admiration, rather than love.

Reviewed by Alan Fitter.

Three Stars.

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/beautiful-little-fool/