Theatre

This is a show that would make thistledown look weighty – a glorious escapism-for-its-own sake musical laced with plenty of sarcastic wit. ‘The Drowsy Chaperone’ began life as a 40-minute pastiche of 1920s musicals, put together as a wedding present for Bob Martin and Janet Van De Graaff, but soon it spread its wings as flamboyantly as any chorus-line butterfly and headed off for Broadway.

Five Tony Awards later, it arrives in London in time to scoop up summer hedonists looking for a little light entertainment. When the curtain goes up the auditorium remains plunged in darkness as a wry voice exclaims ‘I hate theatre.’ The lights reveal a middle-aged man of timid persuasion, engulfed by his cardigan and a sense of nervous depression. Like a camp Woody Allen (and if you liked ‘Bullets over Broadway’ this will be very much your thing), he starts to deliver a knowing, neurotic commentary on an old musical which comes to life in his living room.

It’s Martin (for whom this wedding present was created) who plays the mousey commentator, and the main delight of Casey Nicholaw’s production lies in the interplay between his observations and the caricatures who populate ‘The Drowsy Chaperone’ itself. Nods are made to everyone from Irving Berlin to Cole Porter in a score which – while never as good as the masters it apes – weaves pleasant enough melodic mayhem around the story of a young starlet who’s forsaking her life in showbusiness to marry a man who’s all campery and toothpaste smiles.

As the eponymous Drowsy Chaperone, Elaine Paige does a gloriously comic, dipsomaniacal turn. Elsewhere in the show, the two numbers ‘Show Off’ and ‘Accident Waiting to Happen’ prove the icing on this most frivolous of cakes.