THE LAST FIVE YEARS ★★★★

Garrick Theatre, London, until October 17. Tickets: 0330 333 4811 The idea is simple: a song cycle recording the relationship between a man, Jamie (Oli Higginson) and a woman, Cathy (Molly Lynch) across a five-year period.

The execution is more elaborate. Jason Robert Brown’s musical operates like a sophisticated time machine.

Jamie’s story is told from beginning to end, while Cathy’s is told in reverse, from end to beginning.

While New York novelist Jamie achieves success, confidence curdling into vanity as his ego swells, Cathy’s career as an aspiring actress stalls time and again, undermining her morale.

A baby grand piano on a revolving stage allows the performers to play, sing and bring momentum to an otherwise static piece. The vividly textured songs, inspired by different musical eras, are both romantic and grittily realistic, like an ice cream cone sprinkled with ground glass.

The rapture and hope is finite, disappointment is the stuff of life, love and dreams. And yet there is something uplifting here, too.

Cathy’s vulnerability contrasts brutally with Jamie’s charismatic go-for-it energy and, although he dominates, it is her journey that is truly memorable.