Dan Burton and Lauren Stroud in Top Hat at the Kilworth House Theatre, Leicestershire. Picture: Roy Tan
Top Hat continues at continues at Kilworth House Theatre, Leicestershire until 17 September.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
This is a revival of the multi Olivier Award-winning 2013 Aldwych Theatre production, based in turn on the iconic 1935 film.
The beautiful open-air theatre at Kilworth House is now in its tenth year of producing the very best of classic and contemporary musical theatre, and has long been attracting the best of West End talent.
This show is no exception, with award-winning director/choreographer Stephen Mear being joined by actor Dan Burton, both fresh from their work on Gypsy at the Savoy Theatre.
Vaudeville roots are proudly on display, and the all-singing, all-dancing production stays true to the feel and much of the language of the 1935 original, quoting visually and lyrically from the film.
A series of sketches, dance routines, songs and skits are linked by a featherlight boy-meets-girl plot, with a farcical mistaken identity twist.
The stars of this piece are the chorus. Set against an art deco backdrop, Mear uses their constant movement and rapid costume changes to illustrate a Broadway show, hotel bedrooms and lobby, and a Venetian piazza; chorus members breaking out, apparently spontaneously, to engage with the principals and keep up the pace.
Credit, for example, to Daisy Boyles whose roles include the flower girl, and whose song, ‘What Is Love’, captures the spirit of the piece perfectly.
Jacob Maynard’s dance and movement draws the eye whenever he’s on stage.
But these are just examples, the whole ensemble is magnificent, sly humour peeking through, and there is an overwhelming sense of comradeship and camaraderie.
Underpinning every scene are Berlin’s magnificent songs, so many familiar numbers from ‘Puttin’ On the Ritz’ to ‘Cheek to Cheek’, a dozen or more classics leaving the listener with a jazz-age earworm that lasts for days.
The comic scenes are well executed with Ashley Knight (as the curmudgeonly butler Bates) getting most of the best laughs, but run a close second by Stephane Anelli as Beddini, his ‘Latins Know How’ brings the house down.
After a brisk start, the show loses some energy in Act I. The band is a little too precise, more swing is needed. And leads Burton (Jerry Travers) and Lauren Stroud (Dale Tremont) seem overawed by the ghosts of the past.
Singing, dancing and movement are all pin sharp, but these are not easy roles for either principal, and their chemistry is still developing.
It takes the entry of the tsunami that is Nia Jermin (Madge Hardwick) in Act II to remind us that this show is about fun and laughs and entertainment.
Her comic partnership with Charles Brunton (Horace Hardwick) ignite the piece. The snappy one-liners, dialect gags, slapstick and increasingly farcical situations all then clicke, the ensemble relaxes, and brings us home to a well-deserved standing ovation.
Laura Thomas
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