Once On This Island

This musical won an Olivier Award on its 1994 UK debut, which seems a little surprising now. Susie McKenna's colourful production has a big heart but its story, told to a child to allay her fears at an approaching hurricane, is schmaltzy bordering on ridiculous.

The heroine, a foundling child called Ti Moune, is raised by peasants on one side of an island in the Antilles; on the other side live rich descendants of the original French settlers, who 'despise us for our blackness'. With some help from the gods, Ti Moune encounters one of them, Daniel, when his car crashes in her neighbourhood. She proceeds to fall obsessively in love with him - which seems more lunatic than romantic, given that he's a comatose man about whom she knows nothing whatsoever.

The path of their love leads, via a ripe song and some cheesy dialogue, to trouble, when snobbery prises the sweethearts apart. There's a fine scene when Ti Moune (Shyko Amos, pictured) performs a passionate, inelegant peasant dance for Daniel's aristocratic friends. The show's best feature is its expansive spirit. And the cast is excellent, with Jo Servi displaying particular relish as Papa Ge, the demon of death. Kids are surely the intended audience; adults with a sweet tooth might also apply.