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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Post Show Q+A with writers Jethro Compton and Darren Clark
00:24:20
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- [00:00]
Miki Jo
Oh, my God. Hey, my name is Miki Jo. I'm a theatre critic and social media content creator and I'm here this evening at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End to host a talk back at the Olivier Award winning new musical, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We're going to be chatting with the award winning writers, Jethro Compton and Darren Clarke. Here's what is going to happen.
- [00:19]
Lydia
Thank you very much.
- [00:20]
Miki Jo
Hello, everybody. How are we doing? Who needs tissues? Are we all okay? Please join me in welcoming the livier award winning minds behind the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Jethro Compton and Darren Clark. How exciting. So, first of all, congratulations to both of you after the Olivier Awards. Lovely to watch from afar. I do have to ask if there's any possible expansion on the now iconic. I haven't written a speech because I'm from New Zealand.
- [00:59]
Darren Clarke
Yeah, no, there isn't. There isn't. Because I'm from New Zealand. I don't do expansions. Fine.
- [01:06]
Miki Jo
What else did we expect? What is the prevailing memory of that day at this point?
- [01:14]
Jethro Compton
Oh, God. I was just. It's not my environment, that sort of thing. All those people, all that noise, it was a blur. I was relieved when it was over. Very grateful, of course. Relieved to just go home.
- [01:28]
Darren Clarke
I was. There was. There were many, many, many. But one particular one was seeing Jethro's face on a stick before the. Because they put people's faces on sticks where you're. Where you're meant to sit and just walked into the auditorium and there was just Jethro's face on a stick next to it was my face. Quite surreal.
- [01:52]
Miki Jo
Did you get to keep the faces on the sticks afterwards?
- [01:54]
Darren Clarke
I did not take the stick.
- [01:58]
Miki Jo
Amazing. As everyone at this point now knows, the musical version of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button transplants the concept of the story to your native Cornwall. I've always been very curious. What sparked the idea for you to do that? What sort of birthed that in your mind?
- [02:14]
Jethro Compton
I'd been. I knew I wanted to make a musical and I knew I wanted to set it Cornwall. And I sort of had this image of what you see here in my head of a Cornish harbor side. And I knew it would be actor, musician, but I didn't know what the story was or the plot or any. And I was researching stories that recently come to public domain and looking for something that had a recognizable title that might make settings a little easier to use on the fringe and discovered Benjamin Button. I thought, that's a great. That'd be A great show and maybe three or four months that there wasn't two separate projects until I realized, actually I could just use the story of Edge and Button. Put that into this untitled Cornish musical setting.
- [02:55]
Miki Jo
And, Darren, you've told me this before, but I'd love to share it with everyone here, how you approach musicalizing the idea of time without the concept of clocks and ticking and metronomes and meters.
- [03:08]
Darren Clarke
Yeah, it was. Sitting in the harbor side was just such a joy for me to work with because it was all, you know, the tides and the waxing waning of the moon and the way that people used to keep time. Yes. So it was a real joy to use that as a basis for all of the music, which sort of meant it kind of. It's less mechanical and more sort of washing has a washing quality, a cleaning quality. Yeah, so it was that, really. Yeah.
- [03:42]
Miki Jo
Jethro, you wear a lot of different hats creatively on this show. Co writer, director and set designer, which is sort of not often something that comes into that conversation as well. And when we got to briefly stop by the rehearsals, something I noticed is it was like this grid system for the way you were staging the show. It was like, right at this point, at the end of this number, you're going to take. Pick up the barrel and the barrel goes to like, G4. And that happens over here. Tell us a little bit more about that.
- [04:11]
Jethro Compton
I'm very anal. John Deglish is just snapping upstairs. So you're a test. I. I'm not. I am a creative person, but I'm more of a technical person. Today I. I have to apologize. I thought I packed some spare clothes, but I left my office. So I dressed like this because today I was building a set for a different show. I do lots of different things. And, yeah, I approach everything, I suppose, from a relatively rigid, regimental sort of way. And I like the science behind things and I love plans. I love everything being laid out neat and organized. And that grid is still here. You probably can't see it in the auditorium, but down there there are little LED lights that mark. So you've got the green center line and then Those mark, the 1 meter grids so that everyone can align to those as they did in the rehearsal room.
- [05:11]
Miki Jo
And obviously, when there's very bright floodlights in your face and you're playing an instrument on stage and choreographing around, Those tiny little LEDs are very easy to see.
- [05:20]
Jethro Compton
Video were originally put there to. Well, they're surprisingly. They're surprisingly good, particularly because it's not normally quite this bright, but they were also a safety reason to stop people falling off the front. It's pretty wonky.
- [05:33]
Darren Clarke
Sure.
- [05:33]
Miki Jo
Important, important. Obviously, a huge part of the show's brilliance and childhood identity is the actor, musicianship, and the sound of it is so brilliant. And the instrumentation and all of the orchestrations, which, of course, you also won another Olivier Award for just recently. But something very interesting is, in a normal show, if someone's out ill, someone would perhaps from the ensemble, understudy that role. And in the world of Benjamin Button, because they're playing instruments, everything changes a little bit. So I gather the show that happened tonight, perhaps, was the first time this was like a new configuration of it.
- [06:11]
Darren Clarke
Yeah. That had never been done before this evening.
- [06:15]
Jethro Compton
At most weeks, most multiple versions of.
- [06:19]
Miki Jo
The show, how many different possibilities are there? I see.
- [06:24]
Darren Clarke
I feel like there's been probably. I mean, John would probably know better, but I think there's been probably upwards of 50 different shows so far. 50 different types of shows so far. But I think there's. The possibilities are about 300, close to 300 different shows that people could see.
- [06:42]
Miki Jo
So if you've seen it a handful of times and you haven't yet seen 300 different performances, Reason enough to come back, I guess.
- [06:50]
Darren Clarke
Yeah. I mean, what they do every night and every day, these guys work so hard. Like, they're in doing cut sheets and making sure that all the lines are going to be covered and then making sure all the instruments are going to be covered. Tonight there were three people not on who are usually part of it. So everything was being dittied up between everybody in the sound department and working really hard to make sure they covered all the vines and pick up all the right instruments. Even though they all changed, it really is. It's absolutely mind blowing. And I'm so glad I have nothing to do with it, because I think it would kill me. That's both, probably.
- [07:30]
Jethro Compton
Yeah. I try to avoid getting involved with it as well. We've made this difficult, Vega.
- [07:36]
Darren Clarke
It's very difficult. We promise we won't make another one quite so difficult.
- [07:43]
Miki Jo
Now on the show's lifetime, there's been quite a lot of development from the original version that was first performed, and it's really expanded to this bigger thing now with a bigger cast. Had you any sense of what the show was eventually going to become, and could you have conceived of the fan response that there's been as well?
- [08:04]
Jethro Compton
No, not really. My plan was to just make it get it on at Southwick Playhouse and Then sell the licensing rights to a US company so we could just make some passive income and just sit back and enjoy our lives a bit. I knew it would have success in the licensing, but obviously where the shirt's grown to now means that it will have a much better chance and be a successful around the world. But I mean, I've been producing fringe shows for years at that point, and you always hope that maybe someone come in and there will be an amazing audience reaction and you'll sell out and there'll be a load of West End producers who are desperate to throw money at it and it never happens. I think by that point I just given up on any of that sort of those sort of fantasies. So the fact that it then, you know, did sell out, loads of people just fell in love with it, including the industry and the commercial sort of sect and fell in love with it was very surprising. Very, very surprising. I'm thrilled. It's. It's incredible. It's been an amazing journey and it feels. I mean, you might feel differently. It feels like it belongs in this theater. It feels perfect in this.
- [09:18]
Miki Jo
Is there a name for the Benjamin Button Phantom? There's many names. Lydia's nodding at me.
- [09:25]
Jethro Compton
The regulars.
- [09:26]
Darren Clarke
Oh, that's amazing.
- [09:28]
Miki Jo
Rent's nicer than the pickled crabs.
- [09:30]
Darren Clarke
Thanks.
- [09:32]
Miki Jo
That's probably a little bit better, but I'm. We're very happy to hear from you. I'm going to pass this down into the audience. Does anyone immediately have a question and want to kick us off? Lydia. Okay, we can get this. I was told to just pass this down.
- [09:46]
Jethro Compton
The front foot of the stage is not load bearing, so don't expect. Wish I was joking.
- [09:55]
Lydia
Hi, my name's Lydia. I think this was my 14th time for the show tonight. It means a lot to me, so I just want to say thank you. First and foremost, I'd really like to know more about the casting process for this show. Did you kind of write the orchestrations and then find the people who played as many instruments as humanly possible or were like tweaks still being made when you had the cast?
- [10:22]
Jethro Compton
You make tweaks stuff, I think, Darren. And explaining more about the orchestration process, but it was very much about finding the right people and finding. We talk about people that are button, people that aren't button. And because we've done the show three times now, we get a sense of who's the right kind of soul to come and join in this company. John Deglish, unfortunately, is not the right. Just an awful human being. To all. So it was very much about finding the right ensemble. And then on the. What'd you say? Keep it fit on. And then in terms of the music. I'll let Darren speak.
- [11:09]
Darren Clarke
Yeah, I'm trying to remember. It was quite traumatic. So I think we knew the sounds that we wanted it to be. We knew the sound it wanted to be, and we knew what sort of instruments would be required to make that serum. So it was a matter of, like, that knowing which instruments we needed and then knowing that Jeff's wrote that we wanted button people, these. These lovely songs. So as a mixture of that and we. It took a long time, a very, very long time to find those people. But our very back, we took that time to do it.
- [11:44]
Lydia
Hi, I'm Becky. My question was kind of, particularly within their villager roles, as I think they know you've got a lot of kind of people playing, like, gender bend loss. Was that kind of something you always wanted to do with people playing kind of different genders, particularly with, like, Mr. Mrs. Bradstone's bastard sister? Was that something which you wanted or was that something that kind of just came about or g had.
- [12:09]
Darren Clarke
It was something we talked a lot.
- [12:10]
Jethro Compton
About in terms of how we wanted the ensemble to be. And because it's a storytelling show, essentially, the idea from the very beginning is that anyone can really play any role, regardless of gender or race. And there are restrictions within that in terms of the vocal ranges that people might be able to achieve. There are certain songs that need to be sung in certain places. But, yeah, it. It sort of. It was always part of the. Of the concept that it should feel like a group of people that come together to tell this story. And it doesn't matter who they are, what they look like, whether they're really ridiculously tall, you know, so it was. At Burns is Matthew Burns. Sorry, officially, Matthew Burns has joined Mr. Shot there as well.
- [13:07]
Lydia
It was terrible.
- [13:11]
Jethro Compton
And.
- [13:14]
Darren Clarke
Yeah.
- [13:14]
Jethro Compton
Have I answered the question? Did that make sense? Great. I got distracted by those.
- [13:19]
Darren Clarke
Your answer? I think just one other thing with that. I think because it started as a cast of five, it was just absolutely necessary that we. That we had to. And I think it sort of lent itself to the storytelling world because it. If anyone can be anyone, then the lovely John duglish can be 70 and he can be 20, and you buy into it. So I think that actually ended up helping us probably quite a lot. So I think it took me about three or four visits to catch most.
- [13:55]
Miki Jo
Of the words and some of the.
- [13:56]
Darren Clarke
Songs and sitting up front helped so is there any plans or ideas on the full cast album? What's Buddy.
- [14:03]
Jethro Compton
Aren't we. There will be a cast album very soon. We were hoping to be able to share some more specifics with you this evening. But we. We are. Because it's a really long back holiday weekend. We weren't able to just get everything quite as aligned as we'd like. It has been recorded. It is in the final stages of the mixing mastery and we'll not have to wait much longer. We will stop being asked every day. The incredible front of house team here. Ambassadors will not have to fight. Feel that question and maybe want to hear the words. Carl.
- [15:04]
Miki Jo
Who'S got another question?
- [15:06]
Jethro Compton
Love the show.
- [15:07]
Lydia
It's fantastic. We're. My family and I are big fans of the musical Come From Away and as soon as it started I felt oh this is really quite similar in aspects and I just wondered if that was coincidental or whether you're fans of it as well.
- [15:23]
Jethro Compton
And there was.
- [15:23]
Lydia
There was some influence there.
- [15:26]
Darren Clarke
Yeah.
- [15:26]
Jethro Compton
I'm a huge fan of Come from where I adored it. I think that in a way I think a lot of what you're seeing here probably owes more to a company like Knee High Theatre who were a Cornish theatre company that I. That was the very first theatre company I saw making work and grand watching their work. And it is that sort of fundamental storytelling theatre which Come From Away is also Scorpio theater. It also has had a sort of folk infused soundtrack. Interestingly I was listening a lot back when you. When we were first writing before Southwark and I was getting the bus for about an hour to your flat to write on the floor because you sold all the furniture. He's in the process of moving movie house. So we sit on the floor and write and I'd take music about an hour and I'd listen to the Come From Away soundtrack on that bus ride. And I saw Come From Away the first time. I listened to it a thousand times. The thousand I saw. It was the weekend before we started rehearsals, the first time we made the show. So you know, it was there just before I started rehearsals. But a lot of stuff was already planned so it definitely infused within a. Yeah, it definitely made an impact on show. I hope it doesn't feel like he just ripped it off.
- [16:49]
Darren Clarke
It definitely has a DNA. I think the screech out that they play at the end of Come From Away certainly helped us or it helped me think about what's the feeling. We want people to leave with like so to. To. To do a Song which is like, you know, just a tub thumper at the end to make sure people leave. You say that again. Have you heard of that? It's a tub thumper. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:20]
Jethro Compton
So.
- [17:21]
Darren Clarke
So I. I think I. Because I saw it as well and I absolutely love it. I listen to the cast album all the time and that is sort of. It semi influenced the mix, the mixing process of the. The Bus and album, which I've been involved with now for quite a while. And so, you know, we want that. The power that they got into that recording and the, you know, the. The all encompassing sound of it, that's what we wanted for PAs. So. So we're. We're still working on that. We'll get back having.
- [17:52]
Miki Jo
So I'm. No one asked me to answer this question, but I'm going to jump in on it as well. Having been to Cornwall a lot and having also been to Gander to experience kind of both of those communities, there is also a lot of a kinship sort of between the two places. Even though they're as far apart as they are. And they're both shows that really authentically and beautifully capture that sense of community from there as well. So I think that goes a lot of the way to answer some of that closeness between the two. Who has another question here in the stores?
- [18:22]
Lydia
I absolutely love the show. My sister's seen it about five times. This is my first. I'll definitely be back. But it's not really about the show. I just want to know what beer you're drinking.
- [18:33]
Jethro Compton
That is a pint of Synostel Ale. Proper job, which we sing about the show. Not what we say. Proper job. But that's an expression. So the beer is named after the expression which we use in Cornwall. But we sing Sweets and Oster Ale quite a lot in the show. They haven't sponsored us. I wanted the lifetimes live of St Ostel Ale, but we're still working on.
- [19:02]
Lydia
That's actually how I solved the musical Deloitte Al. Every time I come and see it, I feel like I noticed something different in the music and I just wondered if there was a favorite piece of orchestration or music that really speaks to you at different times.
- [19:17]
Darren Clarke
There's different things. Like different things every time. I think I always love. I always loved a bit in Little Life where John's shoulder started. Yes. There's just such joy and sunshine in that.
- [19:35]
Jethro Compton
Stop doing. Indeed.
- [19:37]
Darren Clarke
But he won't. Yeah. But I think that's one of the lovely things about it for me is every time I Come it's something different that I remember or know so that the guys play differently or because they are such a reactive group. You know, it's a. It's different musically every night. So it's a real joy to come and watch and just. Just hear the music in a different sort of different light every time. You just.
- [20:08]
Jethro Compton
I love the music that is the music of home that is used in the. Little did he know the return of the bottle and into. Through all of that I just. That bit. I can never get bored of hearing that. I think it's just thrilling to me. But I agree that I think what is incredible about which I think is a testament to your songwriting also to the way that shows put together every night and he won't enjoy this. But Matthew Burns is not only. So he is also our present musical director and he's involved in making sure that. That we have a show every night that actually has the music in it, which is a lot of work. And I do think that yeah coming in hearing it and sometimes when you saw a type and Marcus in the show and plays a lot of brass when she's not here, we don't cut as much brass. Sometimes we don't have any brass at all. And you hear then very, very different details to the music and that will be covered by different instruments and it just has a very different feel fee and flavor. But always the. The music at the heart of it and what the music the Darius has written always really resonates in a really powerful way. I think it's incredible that it can sound so different every night and yet still be as moving and meaningful.
- [21:36]
Darren Clarke
Thanks Gentra.
- [21:38]
Jethro Compton
See nice things about it. It was so easy.
- [21:41]
Miki Jo
Brings me very neatly to our final very quick question question which is this has been such a big part of both of your professional lives for years now. Has there been any thought about having a second musical baby together?
- [21:57]
Jethro Compton
Dan, we're actually in breach of a restraining order. I know normally I've got allowed with disclosed. It's. Yeah.
- [22:09]
Darren Clarke
There was a time very recently the Jethro swore to God he would never ever write another musical ever, ever again. Not. Not just with me, with anyone.
- [22:19]
Jethro Compton
I think I actually saw an alien theater. Yeah.
- [22:21]
Darren Clarke
Yes. He was going to cover Carpenter and Local Way and Live by the Sea and that was it. But. But we have talked about things, haven't we?
- [22:32]
Jethro Compton
Yeah, we have. We've not. We're not working or anything. Anyway, this is still. Has been, you know, a huge journey and it will take a little bit of time to recover from that jail. And also, it's still a huge amount of work all the time with this show to keep it alive and as strong as it can be in the West End. And also to think about the future of this show. Rich, if you'd asked me six years ago, the West End seemed like the biggest feature that there could be, and it's the most important feature. But there is a whole world out there and we're exploring those avenues as well. And so once we double that, then we'll get the rights to some trashy 90s, write some cheesy songs, and everyone will be happy. And then we'll really be able to retire.
- [23:24]
Miki Jo
With all that to look forward to. Thank you both so much for answering everyone's questions this evening. Thank you all. Head over to the MajorBotton Socials and ask it over there. Find out more about the show and keep coming back. And thank you for supporting new British musical theatre. Thank you so much for watching this. Let me know in the comments if you were there for it in person. Let me know if you've seen the show before, how many times you've seen the show, and let me know which other shows you might like me to do a talk back at next. In the meantime, thank you so much for watching. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. Go book tickets to the Curious Case of Benjamin Button for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
- [24:20]
Lydia
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