Big Fish

Loved this. A funny, warm musical about storytelling, family, and the meaning of life, and at a guess, the best version of this show yet!

Spoilers follow. . .

In the film, Bloom is played by two actors, one in his twilight years and one in his prime. I understand the original musical version used one actor. Really! I couldn't help thinking what "Follies" would lose if it ditched it's young and old actors, and had one set of middle aged actors play their young and old selves? How much more literal and obvious would it be? How much less wistful, poetic, romantic and thought-provoking if young and old could no longer co-exist and observe themselves? In a show about the reckoning of a life, having different timelines co-exist is everything!

The film, however, in my opinion, was lousy. Tim Burton's garish colourful carnival sensibility mitigated against poetry and contemplation, and emphasised instead the grotesque and the absurd. Burton's version also mischaracterised Bloom. In hindsight, I'd say that Albert Finney's Bloom was "Trumpian," a narcissistic self-glorifying pathological liar, and his son's aversion to him, played with an enmity bordering on hatred by Billy Crudup, seemed eminently reasonable. Crucial plot points and imagery, in the movie, actively worked against it's theme, that storytelling can be a glorious way to lift our lives from the mundane, a gift, and an expression of love that transcends generations.

This new show gets everything right. Kelsey Grammer is warm, where Finney was cold. Aided by Grammer's honed avuncular sitcom bumbler persona (which I fell in love with when I saw an episode of Frasier recorded decades ago), it is clear from the start that Grammer's Bloom means well, even if he irritates. Where Bloom's son William, in the movie, oozed disgust with his father's pathological lying, here Matthew Seadon-Young's Clark-Kentalike of a warm loving son, is frustrated with his Walter Mitty of a father only because he fears he will never know him. Simply put, motivations emanate from good places here, making this a universal family story, that, while a little sentimental, resonates powerfully, and reduced me to tears.

When Edward Bloom tells his fantastical stories, this show contextualises them ingeniously, by having Grammer tell the stories to a child actor, as the stories play out in front of them. Although literally the boy could be seen either as Grammer's own son in the past, when he first heard these stories, or alternately, as Grammer's Bloom's future grandson, in fact, the boy is an avatar for the childhood selves of the audience, evoking our own entree into the magical world of storytelling. I found myself thrown back into the stories my own father told me about how he fought lions with his bare hands, back when he used to jump around pretending to be Tarzan, before he put his back out. Through this construct, Bloom's stories become magical, rather than Trumpian, and through the magic of theatre, Grammer's Bloom gets to timetravel poetically, as he wistfully observes the vigour and passion of his younger self (Jamie Muscato), playing out his adventures onstage. While I never saw the Broadway show, I just cannot imagine that it could have been anything but quotidian, compared to the magic of this!

New songs have been added, about real relationships and the circle of human life, moving us further from the empty wacky roadshow of the movie, towards an appreciation of the wonder of the real, expressly, family. Appropriately, one song, called "Wonder" is about childbirth, and the other, called "The Road that Leads to You," is about couples. The new songs, like the new frame for the musical, serve the same purpose, to ground the show in the real everyday experiences of all of us, so that what the show has to say about storytelling's function, to enhance our mundane lives, really resonates.

All in all, I admit there is a streak of sentimentality, and I admit Grammer is not the best singer, but this is a truly beautiful show! Grounded by fantastic central turns by Grammer (as the out-of-control family member you love to bits) and Matthew Seadon-Young (Urinetown never gave him the opportunity to show such heart), enhanced by lovely supporting turns by Forbes Masson (wickedly funny), Jamie Muscato (tuneful and bold), Laura Baldwin (enchanting), and many others too, this show is simply lovely.

4 and a half stars.