Before After at Southwark Playhouse Borough – review

The Southwark Playhouses has a thing for musicals that play with time. A socially distanced revival of modern classic The Last Five Years (now over 20 years old and still the show to which all musicals about contemporary relationships are compared) was presented in 2021; last year one of their venues hosted The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the enchanting fable-like story of a man who ages backwards, while the realistic and non-chronological Then, Now and Next took place in two different periods of one woman’s life.

Previously streamed during lockdown, Before After, a romantic comedy-drama two-hander musical by Stuart Matthew Price (music and lyrics) and Timothy Knapman (lyrics and book) tells the story of high-flyer Ami and kind-hearted underachiever Ben. These two twenty-somethings meet, fall in love, move in together, and argue before Ben is injured in a car crash leaving him with no memory of his life before the accident. When they meet again under their favourite tree, Ami seizes the chance to make a fresh start while keeping their previous relationship a secret – she tells herself that she’ll tell him at the right moment, just not yet.

It requires a suspension of disbelief as to why there’s no paper trail or Ben doesn’t know anyone who could help fill in the blanks, but it’s performed with enough conviction by Grace Mouat and Jacob Fowler to allow us to (more or less) buy into the premise.

Performed by a trio of piano, guitar and cello, Price’s score is melodic with a minor-key pop-folk vibe, with a number of passages that successfully evoke a warm day at the protagonists’ favourite beauty spot. The closest to a standout number is probably Ben’s upbeat solo “For the First Time”, when he’s awaiting Ami at his flat and he stresses over which T-shirt to wear to make the best impression.

Georgie Rankcom’s direction is understated, if a touch unvaried, and Yimei Zhao’s muted set design provides a blank canvas. ‘Before’ and ‘After’ are projected on the set to avoid confusion as to which timeframe we’re in, with help from a red coat and mustard jumper.

Ami has an important corporate job and a needy father but wants to be free-spirited, while the chaotic Ben, having grown up in foster care, has no ties. Mouat and Fowler (who previously co-starred in Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella at the Hope Mill Theatre) capture the dynamic of two people who really like each other, and Fowler is particularly engaging with his ‘freewheeling boyish charm’. The unmiked singing captures the conversational tone in an intimate space, though there are times when they could project slightly more for impact.

The piece does seem naïve in its idealised depiction of the art market and Ben’s jump from beginner to prodigy (at least in Ami’s eyes): the main source of tension between the couple, apart from the class difference, is the way in which Ami wants Ben to sell his paintings even though he isn’t keen, and expectations around monetising a hobby are underexplored. As a chamber musical, it has plenty of potential but it needs more detailed world-building and a dash more fizz to capture the spirit of classic rom-com with an extra sprinkling of soap opera.