The central conceit of The Last Five Years is very simple (or, perhaps, very complex): it tells the story of a five year relationship in both chronological order and in reverse. Jason Robert Brown’s musical follows its two characters, Jamie Wellerstein and Cathy Hiatt, all the way from their first meeting to their ensuing divorce. Yet whilst Cathy is lamenting the end of their marriage at the beginning of the play, Jamie is celebrating the beginning of their relationship. Jamie’s story then proceeds chronologically, Cathy’s in reverse: as the audience travel with Jamie from his first meeting with Cathy towards his eventual divorce, they travel with Cathy from the divorce to her first meeting with Jamie. For most of the play, the pair alternate singing solos, leaving them adrift in their individual emotions, torn from their partner by time.
With the above in mind, staging The Last Five Years is certainly no easy task. A cast of only two actors needs to keep the audience occupied, tell a story chronologically and in reverse, and retain emotional tension in a play that the audience knows the ending of from the very beginning. It’s all the more impressive, then, that Manor Road Productions’ staging, directed by Louis Benneyworth, rises to the challenge and absolutely knocks it out of the park. Every aspect of this production, from the costume, to the live band, to the acting and vocal performances, is continually firing on all cylinders.
From the very first scene, it’s clear that what Benneyworth’s production revels in is contrast. Immediately, the audience is greeted with a relatively bare stage – with a desk and chair on one side, and a single chair on the other – and a huge white sheet behind the characters. Before the action even starts, the sound of the sea fills the theatre, as the waves of time prepare to pull two characters apart. When the play begins, Cathy (Imogen Bowden) is on one side of the stage tearfully lamenting that ‘Jamie is over and Jamie is gone’, and, soon enough, Jamie (Phoenix Barnett) is on the other side gleefully celebrating the start of his relationship with Cathy. The contrast between the characters is delightfully palpable: Barnett’s manic gestures and buoyant delivery give the audience all the joy of a kid in a sweet shop just seconds after Bowden has finished her despairing rendition of ‘Still Hurting’, with her distraught delivery embodying Cathy’s sheer grief as she comes to terms with losing five years of her life. This contrast is further complemented by the set design: as Cathy and Jamie variously celebrate and lament their relationship at the beginning of the play, the aforementioned sheet is filled by two silhouettes dancing and embracing. The effect is gutting, and remains so as it is used throughout the play: the audience are able to witness Cathy and Jamie when they are united and happy, but only behind a veil.
As the play progresses, Cathy and Jamie both move gradually towards the middle of their relationship’s journey, each edging closer and closer to the other. Cathy moves from the eventual divorce to suspicions that Jamie is cheating on her; Jamie moves from the beginning of the relationship to the success of his first book deal. In Benneyworth’s production, the characters are often onstage together, but they do not interact (at least, for most of the play). Barnett and Bowden simply look past each other, a creative choice that proves extremely effective in its uncanniness, and the audience is denied the opportunity to see these halves of a relationship put together, to see these voices unite.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the moment these lives finally meet in the middle of the play, and Cathy and Jamie get married, proves the most impactful and emotional scene of Benneyworth’s production. As the pair sing their duet, Barnett and Bowden’s voices, at last, reverberate in wonderful harmony, and the effect is mesmerising. Credit must also go to Alexandra Russell’s lighting design during this scene, which sees a dim stage suddenly illuminated to reveal the silhouettes embracing behind Jamie and Cathy. Finally, the audience are allowed to see this couple together and happy, in sync with the silhouettes, before they inevitably drift apart again. All aspects of Benneyworth’s production come together to create the emotional climax of this moment, from the joyful voices of Barnett and Bowden, to the swelling playing of the band, to the tender subtlety of the lighting and sound design.
This refrain of happiness is, of course, fleeting, and the audience are immediately pulled backwards and forwards all over again: Jamie goes on to cheat on Cathy and sign the arrangements for their divorce, and Cathy experiences the early stages of her relationship with Jamie and attempts to find fame onstage. As the play ends, the pair sing together one final time. Cathy, falling in love with Jamie, bids goodbye to him ‘for now’; Jamie, having finalised the divorce, bids goodbye to her for good. The excellence of Benneyworth’s production shines through to the very end: the characters’ teary goodbyes, each at totally different stages of their lives, gives the audience one last emotional gut punch, accompanied by the final separation of the silhouettes behind them and, once more, the haunting sound of waves crashing against the shore. From beginning to end, everything about Manor Road Productions’ The Last Five Years just works. It’ll tug at your heartstrings, but you won’t regret seeing it.
[The Last Five Years, staged by Manor Road Productions, is running at the Michael Pilch Studio, 15th-18th October 2025. This is a review of the Wednesday performance, with Phoenix Barnett and Imogen Bowden playing the leads. The same actors will perform on Friday at 8:30pm and Saturday at 3:00pm. On Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday at 6:30pm, and Saturday at 7:30pm, the leads will be played by Aaron Gelkoff and Rebekah Devlin.]