Top Hat

It has comedy foreigners, sexism and a dumb-ass plot. Fortunately, this screwball musical comedy, adapted by Howard Jacques and director Matthew White from the 1935 movie, also has a sublime score by Irving Berlin.

From the swooning overture to numbers such as 'Cheek to Cheek' and 'Isn't This a Lovely Day', as well as 'Puttin' On The Ritz' and 'Let's Face the Music and Dance', judiciously borrowed from elsewhere in Berlin's back catalogue, the music is gorgeous: light as angel's wings, luscious as angel cake. Bill Deamer's choreography responds with twinkling delight - though this chorus needs much more rigorous drilling; there's some sloppiness here that would never pass muster on the Great White Way.

But what of Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen, the leads tasked with eclipsing the celluloid memory of original movie duo Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? Individually, they give stylish performances, but there's not much sizzle between them. Strallen is sassy with endless legs and a strong, warm voice. Chambers' vocals are slightly adenoidal, his dancing often dazzling; his shining moment comes in a breathtaking routine not with Strallen, but with a hatstand.

It has insufficient pizzazz, but this is a lovely production to look at, with exquisite costumes by Jon Morrell and Hildegard Bechtler's elegant set of sliding art deco panels. It's a glitzy chocolate box of a show; sweet, but unsatisfying.