Top Hat
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
Based on RKO’s Motion Picture, adapted for stage by Matthew White & Howard Jacques
Directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall
Chichester Festival Theatre
Star rating: 4
A piece as daft as Top Hat works only if you warmly embrace the cheesiness and run with it. And this production does exactly that – in spades.
Dating from 1935 and effectively a vehicle to showcase the phenomenal talents of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Top Hat’s flimsy plot matters a lot less than the elaborate dance routines. And the sustained, energetic, vibrant, ensemble tap numbers are what will linger in the memory about this production, despite a false start at the beginning on press night because of an unaccountably wet floor which had to be dried off.
Jerry Travers (Phillip Attmore) is a top flight performer who comes to London from New York to work for impresario, Horace Hardwick (Clive Carter – nice foil). Practising dance moves in a hotel room, they disturb the women in the room below and soon there’s chemistry between Travers and Dale Tremont (Lucy St Louis). Cue for many jokes, misunderstandings, situation comedy and mistaken identity before the inevitable all-singing, all-dancing (literally) happy ending.
Attmore is totally on top of Jerry Travers, the Fred Astaire role. He finds masses of charismatic attractiveness in the character so that of course, women are drawn to his blend of suavity and vulnerability. He dances with riveting lightness and precision and sings with passionate warmth. And St Louis more than matches him. Her dancing has a delicate smoothness and they work well together. The rather beautiful dance which follows “Cheek to Cheek”, for example, has exactly the same function as a climactic pas-de-deux in a classical ballet – expressing the feelings of two people newly in love. And it’s a show stopper.
Among the support cast – all of them strong – there’s an outstanding performance from Sally-Ann Triplet, Hardwick’s feisty, knowing wife, Madge. She has some of the funniest lines in the show and delivers them like rapier thrusts. And James Clyde has huge fun with Hardwick’s valet, Bates, trying to be helpful by adopting disguises.
Peter McKintosh’s magnificent set is predicated on a gaudily illuminated arch and clockface beneath which a revolving flat provides a whole series of slick scene changes including a hotel bar and two different bedrooms: it’s glitzy, glamorous and fits the tenor of the show perfectly.
Then there’s a splendid unseen orchestra (MD Stephen Ridley) making all those familiar melodies sound slick, fresh and lively. Percussion work by James Gambold is especially fine.
Of course this is a comedy and, as such, invokes plenty of laughter although relentless punning feels out of place in anything other than a pantomime. Moreover, the second half is too long. But, if you take it on its own terms, it’s an enjoyable show – and probably the most flawless tap dancing you’ve seen in quite a while.
Photograph credit: Johan Persson
