Gypsy - Review

Buxton Opera House, Buxton

*****

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by Arthur Laurents

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Joanna Riding

In a joint production between the Buxton International Festival and the Buxton Opera House and for a ridiculously short run of 8 performances only, Gypsy’s caravan has pulled up in the Peak District’s spa town of Buxton. Drawn from the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, Arthur Laurents’ book is meticulously created, much as his West Side Story was an inspired interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Add in a young Stephen Sondheim penning the lyrics to Jule Styne’s magnificent score and the components were all there to create one of the 20th century’s finest musicals.

While Gypsy Rose may have been the stage name adopted by Louise, the younger daughter of Rose, this musical is all about the maniacally matriarchal Rose, with Sondheim and Laurents combining to create perhaps the most deliciously flawed woman in the canon. Abandoned by her mother at a young age, deserted by two husbands and with two young daughters in tow, Rose is determined to offer her girls – and older daughter June in particular – a career amidst the bright lights of showbiz. But this is 1920’s America, the Great Depression is biting and vaudeville is dying. The world is dog eat dog and Rose is eating dogfood so that her kids may at least enjoy cold leftovers. Is she a self-sacrificial stage-mum? Possibly. But halfway through the first act, as Louise on her birthday sings the solo number Little Lamb, revealing to the audience that as an evidently teenage girl she does not know her own age, we get a glimpse into the infernal cauldron of emotions that define her damaged mother.

Luxury casting sees Joanna Riding play Rose. There is little glamour to the role, rather the interpretation of a middle-age woman railing against the demons of desertion via song after song after song – and each one, in Riding’s interpretation, an absolute banger! From the energy of Some People, straight into the sublimely soft nuances of Small World, Riding grasps Rose’s reins, driving her character through life’s challenges and glimpsed opportunities. On stage for most of the show, Riding’s (like Rose’s) energy appears indefatigable with the actress masterfully controlling Rose’s descent into the facing of reality and recognising the impossibility of her own dream just as Louise emerges to discover her own.

Rose famously closes both acts of the show with massive solos. Riding’s take on Everything’s Coming Up Roses blithely sends the audience off for their interval gin and tonics. She ends the show however with the jaw-droppingly frantic Rose’s Turn. It is gripping to watch Riding perform and if Hamlet is famous for subjecting its leading performer to a draining swordfight in the endgame, so too did the creatives of this show make almost unreasonable demands of their leading lady when they wrote this final number and Riding is breath-taking in her portrayal of decline. 

Monique Young makes sensitive work of Louise's emergence from overlooked younger sibling to the glamour of burlesque and ultimately international stardom. There is a wry cruel wisdom to Louise’s signature song, Let Me Entertain You. The number is sung initially in the show by the young Baby June  as a novelty child-performer in a vaudeville routine.  (Credit here to Sienna May as Baby June and also to Lucy McLoughlin as Baby Louise.) By the end of the show however the lyrics are an acknowledgement of the sleazy allure of the striptease, deftly handled by Young. If there is one small criticism of the production it is that director Paul Kerryson could have made more of the young Louise’s unrequited crush on Tulsa (a young man in Rose’s performing troupe).

In another complex supporting role David Leonard is Herbie, the middle-aged, ex-agent turned candy salesman who holds a torch for Rose throughout, until he clearly sees that Rose can truly love no-one beyond herself. Leonard’s work is sensitive and well-voiced.

The second act’s brief comic respite comes from the three worldy-weary strippers that Rose and Louise encounter as burlesque beckons. Tiffany Graves (Tessa Tura), Aleisha Naomi Pease (Electra), and Rebecca Lisewski (Mazeppa) are each wonderful in their modest cameos in You Gotta Get a Gimmick. Hannah Everest puts in a fine turn as Dainty June, with Liam Dean’s footwork (alongside that of Young too, to be fair) in All I Need Is The Girl proving another treat from choreographer David Needham.

Ben Atkinson’s 13-piece orchestra make delicious work of Jule Styne’s compositions. From the opening bars of the Overture – itself one of the finest ever – their playing is lush and lavish. There is equally strong work from Phil R Daniels’ set design and Charles Cusick Smith’s costumes.

Buxton's Gypsy is one of the finest pieces of musical theatre to open in England this year. It is unmissable!

Runs until 24th July

Photo credit: Genevieve Girling

Broadway Melodies - Review

****

It is a delight to review Dan Burton’s debut album Broadway Melodies. As choreographer Stephen Mear has long known, Burton is currently amongst the finest of musical theatre “triple threats” (defined as talented in all three skills of song, dance and acting) and a man who unassumingly provides an assured touch of class to all his roles, whether they be leading or support. Recent years alone having seen him give an assured Tulsa alongside Imelda Staunton’s Momma Rose in Gypsy, an immaculate Billy Lawlor in a Parisian 42nd Street, with Burton only recently having closed a flawless (and sold out) run as Jerry Travers in Top Hat at Kilworth House.

Those three shows on their own define Burton’s affinity with and affection for the classics from The Great White Way, so there is a true sense of belonging in listening to the singer’s choices – a selection that also bears a distinctly autobiographical touch too.

Burton opens the album with Singin’ In The Rain (he’d played Don Lockwood at Paris’ Chatelet a couple of years ago and keen fans may care to visit Paris this December where the show is soon to return) and gives the timeless number a warmly respectful treatment that drips with the comfort he feels in the role. The song is one that’s known by literally everyone and yet Burton still imbues it with a loving freshness - and there’s a cracking trumpet riff too from Gethin Liddington.

Chichester’s production of The Pajama Game from a few years back transferred, with Burton, to the West End and so it is little surprise that the show’s Hey There features among Burton's chosen ten songs, with his gorgeously mellifluous interpretation makes this number arguably the album’s highlight. Scaling Richard Adler’s and Jerry Ross’s intoxicating key changes with a charm and a confidence, Burton makes one want to set the track to ‘repeat’, to fully savour an enchanting three minutes of song.

There’s a delightful note of comedy as Burton teams up with Lee Mead for Well, Did You Evah. Crosby and Sinatra will always be a tough act to follow but there’s well-rehearsed nuance in this recording and one still cannot help but chuckle at Burton and Mead’s take on the tried and trusted gags.

The entire collection is a treat, with amongst the other songs included are a fabulously sonorous I Only Have Eyes For You and a perfectly pitched I’m In The Mood For Love. 

Sensitively produced by Mason Neely, Broadway Melodies is a must for anyone who loves exquisitely sung show tunes. The album is but a gorgeous glimpse of Dan Burton’s talent and with Xmas just around the corner, could well make a perfect gift.

Available to download from Amazon and iTunes

Gypsy - Review

Savoy Theatre, London

*****

Book by Arthur Laurents

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Imelda Staunton

It is rare to see perfection improved upon, but in its transfer from Chichester Festival Theatre, Jonathan Kent’s Gypsy achieves just that. A highlight of 2014, the resonance of Jule Styne's big band brassy score filled the Sussex theatre's world class open stage. But Gypsy was written in and for the Golden Age of Broadway, to be mounted on a proscenium stage. In re-sculpting their masterpiece to fit the Savoy’s traditional confines, Kent and choreographer Stephen Mear have excelled.

Like a fine wine, Imelda Staunton's Momma Rose has matured since last year's press night. To this most complex of women (a role sometimes likened to the King Lear of musical theatre), Staunton now adds an even richer lustre. Not just a pushy mother, Rose is at once loving of her daughters yet insensitive to their needs, principled and yet shamelessly opportunistic and above all, endowed with the most monstrous of egos. Staunton owns her stage mastering a complex cocktail of passion, drive and ultimately the most fragile of vulnerabilities in a virtuoso performance. Stamping her mark on the show with a strength of voice that matches perfection in tone and an unbelievable presence, her comic one-liners are as perfectly honed as the pathos she wrings in her spot-lit solo finale, Rose's Turn. Truly, Staunton is now the finest female actor of her time.

Lara Pulver is exquisite as the initially fragile and over-shadowed Louise. In Little Lamb, Pulver blends a painful poignancy alongside our horrendous realisation that she is a young woman whose emotional development is literally being stifled by her mother. In a performance of mastered subtlety, Pulver commands our sympathy throughout. Thrown onto a burlesque stage at a moment’s notice, Pulver makes her first faltering steps into small-town sleaze straight into a piercing white spotlight and her character’s awkward pain is evident. But when she emerges, sable clad in fame and fortune yet still able to comfort her distraught mother whose own dreams now lie shattered, Pulver breaks our hearts.

Peter Davison completes the leading trio. New to the show, he brings a relaxed yet weathered and leathered credibility to Herbie that was the one missing link in Chichester. Davison can sing and move in line with his stature - and as Stephen Mear has already commented, the chemistry between Davison and Staunton sparkles.

Gypsy’s gems are richly sprinkled amongst its uber-talented company, with Dan Burton’s Tulsa proving him to be as smoothly voiced as his body is lithe. Burton’s routine in All I Need Is The Girl oozes the coolest of romance, with Mear choreographing the man magnificently.

Gemma Sutton's June hits the mark in the first half. One of the leading talents of her generation, Sutton imbues her over-mothered character with just the right amount of squeaky-voiced ambition, yet also despair. Top notch dance work from this talented young lady too.

The three seen-it-all Wichita strippers played by the (far from veteran) Anita Louise Combe, Louise Gold and Julie Legrand, offer the show’s wryest perspective, with a world-weary wisdom not dissimilar to the tragi-comedy of Hamlet’s gravediggers. Their wonderful You Gotta Get A Gimmick proving gloriously and hilariously that womanhood is still to be celebrated after the flush of youth has faded. 

The kids on press night were a polished troupe, with Isla Huggins-Barr’s Baby June bravely and brilliantly dancing her socks off, winning the West End audience with a precocious charm. A nod too to Holly Hazleton’s impeccable Baby Louise, one of the few kids to transfer from Chichester in what is a challenging role.

Anthony Ward’s design deploys ingenious scene shifts, framed within a chocolate box lid of a proscenium façade, whilst Nicholas Skilbeck’s direction of his 15 piece orchestra (all brass and wind, there’s no space for schmaltzy strings in this show) breathes a magnificence into Styne’s compositions that wows from the Overture’s opening bars.

In an era when juke-box songs, fancy stage sets or stunt casting are frequently needed to sell seats, Gypsy marks (another) breath of fresh air in recognising the simple genius of a perfectly written show, exquisitely staged. Moments such as the jaw-dropping choreography of the Time Lapse Transition, Jerome Robbins' original Broadway routine, leave us stunned.

Gypsy’s stage may have shrunk since Chichester, but like Babies June and Louise, this show has grown. Only in town for a few months, they don’t get better than this. Know too that in her Momma Rose, Imelda Staunton is offering the musical theatre performance of the century.

To read my recent interview with Stephen Mear on bringing Gypsy to the West End, click here

To read my review of the original Chichester production, click here.

Gypsy is now booking until 28th November 2015

The Gypsy In Mear - Stephen Mear On Choreographing Gypsy For The West End

clockwise from left Dan Burton, Stephen Mear, Lara Pulver and Imelda Staunton

SINCE THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED - GYPSY HAS OPENED AT THE SAVOY.

READ MY 5* REVIEW HERE

As Gypsy opens at the Savoy Theatre tonight, I caught up with its choreographer and one of the country's leading creative talents, Stephen Mear to talk about the show and in particular to understand more of his work with and respect for leading lady Imelda Staunton.

The Chichester Festival Theatre production of Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's classic was one of the highlights of 2014 winning the Critics Circle award for Best Musical and cementing Staunton's position as quite possibly the nation's greatest musical theatre actress with her portrayal of the complex if monstrous Mamma Rose.

JB:    Stephen, thank you so much for finding the time to talk during the hectic work of Gypsy’s preview run. How's it’s going?

SM:    I don't think I've experienced anything like it before, ever, to be quite honest. We’ve already had Stephen Sondheim in to watch the show and with Imelda having got a full standing ovation after Rosie’s Turn at the first preview, it's really been quite breathtaking.

The full house just stood up instantaneously. It was quite something. I've always said with Imelda it's like watching a volcano erupt. It's all just so brilliantly acted. She's so controlled even in the bonkers section. She's just on the right side of everything. 

JB:    What is it like for you to have created something that was so sensationally acclaimed back in the summer and to then have a chance to revisit it?

SM:    I think it's always amazing to go back and revisit a show that you've done, if only because you have more time to work out different things.

We've changed Lara's strips and made them quicker and more continuous. That was wonderful to do.

JB:    And what challenges have you found in re-staging the show’s movement from Chichester’s modern thrust to the proscenium at the Savoy? 

SM:    At nearly twice the size of the Savoy, Chichester is a wonderful place. You've got three sides and you have to make sure everyone is entertained, including those to the side, otherwise there’s the risk that some of the audience might slightly miss out at some point. We’ve mastered that now, not least because I've worked there so many times.

JB:    The show very much describes a specific time and period in American history. What drove you in your vision to have the dance and movement reflect the era? 

SM:    Being true to the period is always so important. I have watched so many of Gypsy Rose Lee's strips, to try and improve Lara's strip routines

And I love that period anyway. I was brought up on MGM musicals!

 JB:    Tell me about choreographing Lara Pulver

SM:    I'm very lucky that we have got Lara who is just sensational and such a brilliant lady with her physicality. She goes from being a plain Jane, and you think, "How the hell is she going to become a fabulous stripper?" She does because, one, she's an amazing actress and two, she's so aware of her body, of how it works. She's just a dream to work with. 

It's the same with Dan Burton with All I Need is the Girl. I know how he works and I know his physicality. He's just so sensational to work on. His line and his flair and his elegance and style. He's got that period style for this piece as well.

JB:    And what does newcomer Peter Davison brings to the show. 

SM:    Peter has brought something different and it’s quite funny. His chemistry is wonderful with Imelda. They seem to be more flirtatious in the first scene which sets it up for me.  He also stands up to her a lot at the end, and it is quite interesting when he does that. 

JB:    Imelda Staunton is one of the finest actresses on both stage and screen and also one of the few who has earned an outstanding reputation that straddles both drama and musical theatre.

SM:    You see, I thought that when I was first was going to do the job, I thought, "I wonder how good her voice is?" And it is truly stunning!

She can sing, she can belt those big notes that Mama Rosie has to do at the end without going down a key or anything. She does not miss a beat. Sometimes she will go away to work on a routine and the next week, she'll come back and she's nailed it exactly to the timing, but with it all looking so natural without ever making it seem like I've said, "Look could you do a shoulder roll there."

She shows all sides of her character. She doesn't show just nice sides, she shows bonkers, sexy, everything. She's like a roller coaster and it’s that that keeps people on the edge of their seat.

JB:    She has an outstanding reputation in the industry as an excellent leading lady. Did you see that in her?

SM:    She's 100% a brilliant leader of the company like you wouldn't believe. She goes around the dressing rooms saying hello to everybody. She's a real star, beyond a star, I think.

When you hear of companies that are having troubles, it normally stems from the top. But if you've got somebody like Imelda, nobody’s ever going to mess about and everybody has to up their game. She's just got that old school mentality that not only knows how to keep everybody happy, she leads the show to what it is.

JB:    To what extent do you reference Jerome Robbins’ original Broadway choreography? 

SM:    We very much wanted to respect Jerome in the scene where the kids turn from young to old, having the old and young actors going simultaneously through each other without the audience suddenly realizing that they are all on stage. That was a challenge but it worked out great and rightly so, like many iconic moments. Jerome Robbins' era paved the way for all of us choreographers and it’s nice to tip your hat to people if you're doing one of their shows

JB:    Stephen, thanks again and I wish you and the company "broken legs" all round for a successful West End run!

Gypsy is now booking at the Savoy Theatre until 28th November 2015

Click here to read my review of the original Chichester production.

Desperate Divas Cabaret - Review

*****

Tiffany Graves, Tom Wakeley and Anita Louise Combe

Tiffany Graves and Anita Louise Combes are West End leading ladies who amongst other things, have both played Chicago’s Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly even if never in the production at the same time as the other. It was Tom Wakeley however, a former Musical Director of the Kander & Ebb hit, that spotted the potential of pairing the two as a double act. It has taken a couple of years to bring Wakeley’s idea to fruition, but their cabaret Desperate Divas, a collection of show tunes loosely themed around the trials of modern dating, is now finally receiving its premier at the St James Studio.

Graves and Combes are vocal sensations and this show is all the more remarkable for having been put together whilst both actresses are currently rehearsing major openings. Graves is shortly to commence touring as Ulla in The Producers, whilst Combes in preparation for the transfer of last year’s sensational Gypsy, from Chichester to the West End’s Savoy. It was a neat touch that saw the gig open with a mash up of When You Got it Flaunt It together with Let Me Entertain You from each show respectively. The tweaked lyrics may have been a little bit cheesy but the songs provided a classy moment that set the tone for the rest of the night.

The divas’ patter was mostly classy, even if occasionally clunky. But this was their first gig – and when schedules allow these talented women to re-group and perform again, (which they must) their spiel will only get better.

The songs however were flawless, combining familiar numbers (in a set list that was inevitably heavy on offerings from Chicago) together with showtunes some of which have yet to be performed in the UK. One of Combes’ desperate deliveries was Where In The World Is My Prince from William Finn’s Little Miss Sunshine, which included the sparklingly memorable rhyme that she’d been “trained by Nikinsky and coached by Lewinsky”. Other treats of the first half included Graves’ (now clad in a wedding dress – bravo to the backstage dressers for executing such speedy costume changes) Always A Bridesmaid from I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, whilst the pair closed act one with Side Show’s plaintive Who Will Love Me As I Am, delivered with stunning harmonies and a thrilling anthemic power.

Graves had played a stunning Sukie Rougemont in the 2013 prodcution of The Witches of Eastwick at Newbury’s Watermill (reviewed here). So to see Words,Words,Words, a bogglingly complex number rarely heard on the cabaret circuit, listed amongst the second half gems, whetted appetites. Graves duly smashed the song, to showstopping whoops from the packed crowd.

Tom Wakeley excelled on piano throughout – ably accompanied by Paul Moylan on double bass.

The pair closed with Chicago’s Class and Nowadays – done to perfection by two singers who could not know their material more intimately nor with greater understanding. That they also threw in a very slick Hot Honey Rag dance routine, tailored brilliantly to the Studio’s confines, was but an added bonus. These women are at the top of their game with voices that are perfectly tuned. Cabaret singing doesn’t get better than this!

Photo credit - Jonathan Hilder of Piers Photography

Diamond Dozen - My 12 Best Shows Of 2014

In Chronological Order:

Oh What A Lovely War

Terry Johnson's remarkable recreation of this show, on the stage where it all began: Theatre Royal, Stratford East. A beautifully crafted tribute to the horrific legacy of the First World War and the artistic legacy of Joan Littlewood

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/02/oh-what-lovely-war.html

King Henry IV Parts 1 & 2

In Stratford upon Avon, Greg Doran fashioned tragi-comic excellence from Anthony Sher's Falstaff, supported by Alex Hassell's Hal. 2015 will see this trio re-united in Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman. I can't wait!

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/04/henry-iv-part-1.html
http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/04/king-henry-iv-part-ii.html

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Jethro Compton (writer and director) scaled down this iconic Western to fit the Park Theatre, without losing a drop of the story's nuances and tensions. John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart would have been proud.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/05/the-man-who-shot-liberty-valance.html

Carousel

On a shoestring budget at the Arcola, Morphic Graffiti with Lee Proud's visionary choreography, breathed a new life into this beautifully tragic classic. Gemma Sutton broke hearts as the girls and gays swooned for Tim Rogers.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/06/carousel.html

Amadeus

In the first of three nods on this list for both Chichester and for Stephen Mear, Rupert Everett's Salieri paired with Joshua McGuire's Mozart marked a gloriously styled re-opening of the Festival Theatre as this South Coast centre of excellence gave the most exciting take on Amadeus since the play's 1979 National premiere.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/07/amadeus.html

Dogfight

Producer Danielle Tarento spotted the dramatic potential for this tale of misogyny misfired, set during the Vietnam war. The best of the critics loved it, including (eventually) the Evening Standard who went on to give leading lady Laura Jane Matthewson their 2014 Emerging Talent Award.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/08/dogfight-review.html

Guys and Dolls

Chichester again, for another show that was the best since the National's version in 1982. A cracking cast led by Peter Polycarpou, Jamie Parker and Clare Foster made the Festival Theatre's first musical, memorable.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/08/guys-and-dolls-review.html

Gypsy

And again! Imelda Staunton (with Lara Pulver and Gemma Sutton) was scorching as Mama Rose, whilst Stephen Mear choreographed par excellence and Jule Styne's brassy brilliant sound filled Chichester's cavernous orchestra pit for the first time. Arriving in London in March 2015, don't miss this one.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/10/gypsy-review.html

The Scottsboro Boys

A deserved West End returning transfer for last year's sensational debut at the Young Vic. Broadway may have shunned this tragic stain on America's history, but London critics recognised Kander & Ebb's final collaboration for the work of troubling genius that it is and the Evening Standard have proclaimed it Best Musical of the Year.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/10/the-scottsboro-boys-review.html

On The Town

Broadway does what it does best in this sensational celebration of song and dance. Bernstein's classic score underpins this fairytale of New York.

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/11/on-town-review.html

Assassins

Rarely seen commercially, Jamie Lloyd's directs a stellar cast (Jamie Parker included) in Sondheim's caustic commentary upon the USA. Sold out at the Menier until March '15 this show may transfer but it will never be the same anywhere else. Oh, and Soutra Gilmour's Arkham inspired design is a knockout!

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/12/assassins-review.html

City Of Angels

Stephen Mear's third UK triumph, where with director Josie Rourke the pair craft a world class company into musical theatre perfection. Hadley Fraser cheats (on stage) on real life wife Rosalie Craig and Peter Polycarpou drops his trousers, again. Sold out but tickets released daily and weekly for this clever, classy comedy. Kill to get your hands on one!

http://www.jonathanbaz.com/2014/12/city-of-angels-review.html

Gypsy - Review

Chichester, Festival Theatre

*****

Book by Arthur Laurents

Music by Jule Styne

Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Jonathan Kent

Imelda Staunton

Vaudeville is dying in 1920’s America. Against that backdrop and to Arthur Laurents’ book, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim have penned one of the bleakest yet most beautiful musicals ever. Gypsy, set in the Great Depression, charts Momma Rose’s manic depression, who as the pushiest of parents sets out to channel her own fading dream of showbiz stardom, through the lives of her daughters.

Imelda Staunton's Momma Rose defines the role. She and Jonathan Kent have previous of course, with her Mrs Lovett in his Sweeney Todd proving Chichester's 2011 sensation, going on to win her an Olivier the next year on its West End transfer. This remarkable actress offers a totality of commitment, in movement, voice and emotion that proves a truly rare trinity. As well as the most complex of paths to pathos, Staunton also finds the humour that Sondheim subtly weaves into his prose, with Small World in particular proving a delight. It is of course in the delivery of those massive numbers Everything’s Coming Up Roses and Rose’s Turn, that Staunton proves herself beyond compare amongst her generation.

The impact of the abusive emotional neglect that Momma Rose heaps on her daughters is brought into painful relief by Lara Pulver as the over-shadowed Louise and by Gemma Sutton (a name increasingly associated with exquisite performances) as her spotlight-addicted sister June. Pulver’s portrayal of Louise, continually being overlooked in favour of her sibling, is never once overplayed by the actress. As vaudeville dies and Momma Roses pushes the shy Louise into the spotlight as a small town burlesque stripper, Pulver gives one of the most poignant segues ever, as the brutatlity of her mother’s pushing evolves into the tender, initially damaged response of the daughter. Oh and her voice in the glorious penultimate number Let Me Entertain You, is heavenly. Alongside and as a hangdog Herbie, a complex man desperately out to win Rose’s love, Kevin Whateley, a name not often associated with musical theatre convinces us of his commitment to Rose’s dream.

Other notable gems in this jewel box of a cast are Dan Burton’s Tulsa whose grace in both voice and dance wows in All I Need Is The Girl, whilst (the almost) veteran Louise Gold as Mazeppa plays the most world-weary of strippers who’s seen it all and proves as much, leading a gloriously sleazy line in You Gotta Get A Gimmick. And a salute too for young Georgia Pemberton, whose presence, dance and baton twirling brilliance as the Young June is an absolute treat.

Stephen Mear’s choreography is incisive and beautifully conceived. His company work is a joy throughout, with the meticulously managed “mediocrity” of Broadway, as Rose’s vaudevillian hoofers bungle their way through a routine, proving to be a classy confection.

The design by Anthony Ward neatly combines marquee lights with the drabness of assorted downtowns, whilst directly beneath the stage the most gloriously proportioned pit, being used here for the first time in the newly rebuilt venue, accommodates Nicholas Skilbeck’s fifteen piece (predominantly brass) band. Styne’s score is given a truly thrilling treatment, with the Overture alone setting spines tingling.

The good people of Chichester are spoiled with the flawless perfection of this show. As Gypsy demands all from Imelda Staunton, so too does theatre demand that this production reaches a wider audience. Go see Gypsy – Its haunting perfection will stay with you for a long time.

Runs until 8th November 2014