BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 116
C U LT U R E & A RT S
A scene from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Olivier Award–winning musical
born from years of passion, perseverance, and creative brilliance.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF
THE OLIVIER TRIUMPH
Fitzgerald, “who’s staged it?”, I asked.
By Richard
Darbourne
Richard Darbourne is senior
producer at ATG Productions,
an international theatrical
production company dedicated
to producing critically
acclaimed, commercially
successful and creatively
ambitious work for the West
End, Broadway and beyond.
“Jethro Compton” came the reply. He
was apparently the show’s producer,
director, writer and designer, and a
decade before, we had shared an of昀椀ce
as part of an “emerging producers”
support programme called Stage One.
“
We were wide-eyed and penniless, but
with enough ignorance to forge ahead
in the most turbulent of career choices.
Back then, that “career” was more a
series of small steps that seemingly
would lead nowhere but collectively
would create a slow trajectory towards
accumulating enough credibility to
allow us both to earn a living from
putting shows on. When you know
someone else has been on that journey,
it forges a strong bond. He knew about
me, and I knew about him. We both
“got it”.
“Who is it by?” I don’t mean F. Scott
They say you need a bit of luck, and
that is true. However, the actor Peter
You really should go and see
this show, The Curious Case
of Benjamin Button.” I often
heard comments like this, but
this was the second person who had
said it. It was June 5th, 2019.
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Dinklage describes it better by saying
“I hate the word ‘luck’: it cheapens a
lot of hard work.” Jethro had brought
this thing to life with a tenacious, oneman vision to take those hardest and
loneliest of steps...the 昀椀rst ones.
If a musical takes off, the royalty
remuneration is weighted heavily
towards the authors: typically, 50% of
the total pot goes to the authors of the
music, book and lyrics.
This is why. In the beginning they
have not just to create it but coax it
into life. Not only do they probably
not get paid, but they have to pay
others. And raise the initial 昀椀nance
to get it seen and staged in whatever
way possible. And it has to be original
yet mainstream enough to make the
jump from £25 tickets to £75 tickets,
competing with every other major
production.
Back in June 2019, Jethro was
