I WAS brought up by a wildly romantic woman whose idea of love and relationships was moulded by the then-superstar Ivor Novello and The Dancing Years. We went to Bournemouth’s Pavilion Theatre Monday after Monday to watch the stars of the day do their thing. Now, watching the Barn Theatre production of the 2001 show The Last Five Years, it all came back to me … how “ My Dearest Dear”, Novello’s own excuse for his hero’s selfish, controlling hold over the women he professed to love, has translated almost 70 years on.

What is most evident is that I can still hum the music of the 1939 show with all its soaring, tear-jerking melodies, but not one of Jason Robert Brown’s creations, heard less than 24 hours ago. While Novello was swimming in waves of sentimental emotion, Jamie and Cathy are caught in a very clever mathematical dissection of their relationship in a sung-through show that swoops through musical genres with great skill. The show calls for a couple of super-versatile singers, and that’s what it has in Bristol-born Martha Kirby and Guy Woolf.

This production started its life at Cirencester’s Barn Theatre, and comes to Bath for the Christmas season (it has one bit of pretty Christmas lighting). Its two protagonists have four musicians on stage with them, and at the Barn, MD Ellie Verkerk-Hughes was on piano, with Rebecca Demmer on cello, Wills Mercado on guitar and Angus Tikka on bass. For the Bath opening Ellie was replaced on keys by the excellent Tim Jasper – I tell you this to explain the gender balance, not to reflect on the skill of performance. Originally there were three males on stage and three females. At Bath this week there are two females and four males.

The Last Five Years, first seen in New York in 2001, follows on from Novello, and from Sondheim’s Passion and Follies and more, and from many, many American musicals, in exploring the dynamics of heterosexual coupling. The staff were taking opinions from the departing audience at the Ustinov, and I’m guessing there was a very pronounced male-female divide, which perhaps was exaggerated by the on-stage balance. Jamie is a self-satisfied, self-obsessed, condescending and controlling shit, and Cathy is a loving, striving and ultimately disposable accessory to this man on the professional, sexual and personal make.

There are countless plays, films and stories that repeat this mantra. This one’s USP is its structure – Jamie’s story is told forwards and Cathy’s told backwards, simultaneously, with one central meeting described in the programme as an “achingly beautiful wedding”. It is very clever.

The songs draw inspiration from a variety of genres, and outstanding are Jamie’s Klezmer tinged Schmuel Song and Cathy’s I’m Still Hurting and the brilliantly-interwoven audition section. Can I remember the tunes (and I’m good at remembering tunes)? – no, sorry, I can’t. But director Jason Robert Brown assures us in the programme that “this music has taught me about love in a myriad of ways.”

It is brilliantly staged, performed with huge versatility and commitment, and I am sure the perfect antidote to Christmas shows as we know them. Personally, I can’t see why this show should have gathered an international decades-long following, while David Grieg’s Midsummer, a charming, Edinburgh-set musical exploration of a relationship shown at the Barn in May, should have vanished without trace.

I am back to the old musicals, the now very dubious 1958 Gigi in particular, with ageing roue Honoré as sung by Maurice Chevalier – I really AM glad …

GP-W