White Christmas the Musical – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas the Musical at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh continues until 4 January, 2014.

The wonderful thing about the best musical theatre is how it can so completely transport audiences into another world, despite its obvious artifice.

Closely following the plot of the film, albeit with a few additional Berlin songs added in to smooth its passage, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas the Musical is a heart-warming tale performed with real love and energy by a cast fully on top of their game. The whole scenario is set up promptly enough: it’s 1954 and Bob Wallace and Phil Davis are a successful song-and-dance double-act who, intrigued by the singing Haynes Sisters Betty and Judy, latch on to their trip to Vermont and discover that the hotel owned by their former commander, General Waverly, is in financial difficulties. So they decide to help in the only way they can, by putting on their new show in the hotel’s old barn, and inviting an audience of surviving members of their platoon.

That, in itself, is Feel Good with capital letters, but the warmth of this show is underlined by the burgeoning romances between the gregarious Phil and Judy, and the altogether more reluctant Bob and Betty. In many respects, the whole melodramatic plot is nothing more than the garbled messages and misunderstandings that prevent the pairs from getting hitched in the first five minutes. That ultimately both couples will be united by the end is hardly in doubt, but if there’s a criticism of director David Morgan’s otherwise highly professional production, it’s that – dramatically speaking – the ultimate reconciliation feels overshadowed by the onwards rush towards the final big musical number (the titular song, no less) which the audience is invited to sing along to.

Steven Houghton, Paul Robinson, Rachel Stanley and Jayde Westaby (as Bob, Phil, Betty and Judy respectively) fill their roles well, with a good rapport, while Graham Cole (admittedly, not exactly chosen for his singing abilities) brings a loveable respectability to General Hank Waverly – though again, the General’s own personal narrative possibly turns too quickly on a coin to be entirely satisfying. Wendi Peters, as the General’s hard-put-upon assistant Martha, is an absolute delight, though; a vocal and dance powerhouse, and a scene-stealer in the best possible sense of the term.

The staging is spectacular too, with a remarkably efficient range of settings from designer Anna Louizos, ranging from the heightened Technicolor pastels of the Vermont hotel to the abstract neon and dry ice of an old-school Hollywood dance number, as Phil and Judy lose all sense of the outside world while in each other’s arms (choreograhy by Randy Skinner). It could be argued that there’s perhaps just too much Coca-Cola red on stage by the end of the night, but this particular White Christmas remains an exhilarating, festive offering – a colourful world, filled with lively song and dance, that reminds us all of the value of loyalty and love.

Paul Cockburn

www.edtheatres.com/whitechristmas