Beautiful Little Fool

Live music and strong performances bring a subdued elegance to this biographical musical.

The set for Beautiful Little Fool resembles an archive space: meticulously curated bookshelves line the stage, giving the impression of a carefully preserved literary legacy. The band are positioned stage right, and I will always champion the inclusion of live musicians on stage, it instantly adds charm and atmosphere. However, when the actors use the ‘band mic’, I did find myself wishing for a subtle sound effect. As it stood, it sounded unchanged, making it feel more like a prop than a deliberate design choice, which was a missed opportunity.

The cast and creative team attached to this production are, on paper, impressive. In the performance I attended, Zelda was played by cover Amy Parker, who delivered a genuinely assured performance. Watching her, you would never have guessed she wasn’t performing the role night after night. She brought a lovely, deep tone to her voice that suited the material well. David Hunter, as F. Scott offered a controlled and thoughtful portrayal, though at times this restraint worked against the dramatic potential of the piece.

Musically, I found some of the score to feel oddly out of step with the era being depicted, which proved a little jarring. Given the cultural mythology surrounding F. Scott and Zelda, one expects the music to help ground us in time, but here it occasionally pulled focus instead.
The show runs for one hour and forty-five minutes without an interval. While this can heighten pace and energy, this production unfolds at a much slower tempo, making the lack of an intermission feel puzzling rather than purposeful. A pause might have helped reset the audience and sharpen the second half.

It feels necessary to address the comparison that looms over this production. As one might expect from a biographical musical about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, the storyline bears more than a striking resemblance to the 2003 musical Beautiful and Damned, which set out to explore the same territory. While Beautiful Little Fool claims to frame the story through the eyes of their daughter, Scottie, this device is ultimately underused. Scottie functions as a reflective, semi-fourth-wall-breaking narrator who drifts in and out of the action, but little is done to meaningfully root the story in her perspective. We are told she manages the estate and has four children, yet these facts are delivered as statements rather than being woven into the narrative in any meaningful way.

There is no clear message or moral driving the piece. While the story charts plenty of emotional highs and lows, this is a far more sombre and melancholic version of the Fitzgerald mythos. It notably lacks the glitz and glamour so often associated with the couple, save for one rather lonely party popper. For two people living such a famously lavish lifestyle, I would have liked to see the costume design by Laura Hopkins really lean into that excess. The show spans several decades, yet there are few clear indicators of when we are meant to be. Small but telling details; such as moving from a no-vent jacket with wide lapels to a single-vent silhouette, or even the inclusion of a waistcoat could have helped ground us historically. The absence of a three-piece suit, so emblematic of the era, felt particularly noticeable.

There were also moments where technical details distracted. In one scene, the couple lie on a bed reading an article; from the audience’s perspective, the magazine was upside down. Later, when it was laid flat, it became clear the slip cover had simply been applied the wrong way round. These are minor issues, but they pull focus in a production already struggling to fully engage.

One moment that sat particularly uncomfortably involved an argument about F. Scott’s drinking. He is not initially portrayed as drunk, yet as he climbs the stairs on all fours he appears to become severely intoxicated at an alarming pace, to the point it resembled a medical episode. There is a line suggesting Zelda pushes him too far, but this is never clearly explained. It felt unclear whether this was meant to foreshadow his eventual heart attack or represent something else entirely.

Ultimately, this production needed more drama. Affairs are discussed with surprising nonchalance, financial ruin never feels desperate, and the drive to write or survive is oddly muted. While it seems the show is attempting to draw greater sympathy towards Zelda, it does so at the expense of the volatility and excitement that make this couple so compelling. Curiously, it felt reminiscent of Next to Normal, but without the spark or emotional punch; a comparison made all the more interesting given that this production is directed by Tony Award nominee Michael Greif. Beautiful and Damned may not have been perfect, but I don’t feel this production meaningfully improves upon it. When revisiting a story that has already been so clearly told, a new production must either offer a marked improvement or present a genuinely fresh perspective. Without that clear evolution, it risks feeling like a muted copy of what has come before