Review: BEFORE AFTER at The Southwark Playhouse, Borough

Photo credit: Danny Kaan

Date: 9th February 2024

Seat: Unallocated (Front Row)

Tickets: Gifted

Rating: 4 Stars 

Before After has the potential to be a complex and befuddling musical, but in the gentle hands of writers Stuart Matthew Price (music and lyrics) and Timothy Knapman (book and additional lyrics), director Georgie Rankcom, and performers Grace Mouat and Jacob Fowler, it instead becomes a piece of art, a beautiful story of love, loss, love found again, and the changes that people go through along the way. 

Ben and Ami were a couple once, and very much in love, but after an accident leaves Ben with no memory of his old life, it all falls apart. Yet when Ami finds him again on the same hilltop they used to visit in their other life, it turns out that the old spark remains, even if one of them doesn’t remember the other. 

The tension in the story comes from the fact that Ami remembers everything and wants to change what happened before, and Ben remembers nothing and can only focus on what’s happening after – will the two worlds collide?

Photo credit: Danny Kaan

There’s always the chance that any story that has jumps back and forth in time (in this case, we get to see what happened before and then switch to after, with the stories alternating as the show progresses – the incident in the middle being the breakup) will end up being jumbled and confused, but in Before After it’s made absolutely clear where – and when – we are at all times. The set is minimal, but a large screen made up of blank canvases (a canny nod to the fact that Ami runs a gallery and Ben is an artist, as well as being a more general metaphor for starting again) literally spells it all out for the audience, with the word ‘before’ or ‘after’ projected onto it when there’s a time shift. 

But more than that, and more than the costume changes that also give us a hint about when things are happening (a red coat for Ami and an orange jumper for Ben are only worn in the after scenes), is the fantastic acting from the two performers. Grace Mouat and Jacob Fowler manage to embody two different characters in one. Grace’s Ami shifts from sweet and naive in the before scenes to harder, even bitter, in the after scenes, whereas Jacob’s Ben is a tough nut to crack before and much more open and innocent after. The changes in mannerisms, facial expressions, and even voices show the audience what the passage of time and the events that took place have done to each of the characters, and those changes are both good and bad. It’s clear that director Georgie Rankcom has constructed a restrained and subtle piece of theatre, and it works perfectly. 

Although Before After would probably work very well as a play, and the acting shown by the performers is exceptional, particularly during the sweet moments when the two are getting to know one another (although the moment when Ami really lets rip at Ben and screams about her life not going the way she planned was utterly astounding), the fact that it is a musical does give it an added element that really does bring it all together, and whether the pair are singing gorgeous harmonies at and with one another, having fun with a patter song, or really just setting the scene, the score is a lovely thing to hear. It’s not a big, bombastic thing with belting numbers – in a small space like the Little at Southwark Playhouse Borough it would be too much – but that goes in its favour. It’s a score that tells a story, it’s full of romance, and when the tension comes, it comes through the lyrics and not the volume – something I certainly appreciate. 

Before After is something special that will quickly find a place in your heart; you might even find yourself wondering if “what comes after is better than before”. 

Get tickets here: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/before-after/

Before After runs until 2nd March 2024 at the Southwark Playhouse Borough. 

Photo credit: These Theatre Thoughts