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The Last Five Years

Published Thursday 27 July 2006 at 11:20 by Mark Shenton

New York composer Jason Robert Brown already has a cult following in the UK. This British premiere, a song cycle that chronicles the rise and fall of a relationship from the double perspective of the woman, rewinding from its end to its beginning, and from the man - simultaneously going forwards, from their first meeting to the end - will undoubtedly win him new fans, both for the audacity of its structure and the vivacity of its music.

But it is still likely to remain caviar to the general - this intimate collection of songs, drawn from his own painful experiences of a failed marriage, is too full of raw, vulnerable emotion and wrenching feeling to play to a feelgood factor.

Still, for those who don’t seek reassurance and uplift from a musical but are prepared to negotiate the emotional minefields he detonates, this portrait of crumbling, compromised relationships has as much power as those exposed by Sondheim’s Follies but in a denser, more compacted style that is just as lyrically and musically rich and at times even rhapsodic.

Exquisitely staged on a revolve that keeps it physically in motion throughout, the churning emotions of its songs are powerfully projected by two fine musical actors Lara Pulver and Damian Humbley who bring heart as well as great art to it.

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