Even with huge commercial musicals there's not always a guarantee you'll get a cast recording, so the odds are stacked against one turning up for a fringe show, no matter how ambitious. This unlikelihood is one that I was already feeling sad about within a few songs of
The Clockmaker's Daughter, as among the many things right with Michael Webborn and Daniel Finn's new musical are songs I'd happily stick on my iPod. Set in the fictional Irish town of Spindlewood, it's an original story but with echoes of everything from traditional fairytales to more modern ones like
Edward Scissorhands, as clockmaker Abraham (Lawrence Carmichael) mourns the death of his wife and decides to deal with the grief by building a replacement: Constance (Jennifer Harding) is a clockwork girl who magically comes to life, but although she does love her creator, as the title suggests it's as a father figure, not a lover. Frustrated, he forbids her from ever leaving the house.
