Top Hat - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Music & lyrics by Irving Berlin

Book by Matthew White & Howard Jacques

Directed & choreographed by Kathleen Marshall

Lucy St Louis and Phillip Attmore

Broadway’s gifted director and choregrapher Kathleen Marshall returns to the UK to helm a gorgeous production of Irving Berlin’s Top Hat.

Berlin’s wondrous songs and the original RKO movie may hail from the 1930s, but the stage show is very much a 21st century confection that takes the film’s ridiculous plot, a narrative so corny that it is the very definition of” musical comedy”, using it as a framework on which to showcase nearly 20 of the American Songbook’s most sparkling gems.

The musical’s story sees two young Americans fall hopelessly in love, albeit their path to happiness is blocked by a delightfully entertaining spin around mistaken identities. Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers and Lucy St Louis as Dale Tremont lead the show  and while both  deliver perfection in their song and dance, it is left to the show’s gifted supporting characters to truly flesh out the evening’s comedy drama. Alex Gibson-Giorgio plays a preening Italian fashion designer with more than an amorous eye for Miss Tremont, while James Clyde turns in a grand performance as Bates, a manservant who pops up throughout the tale in a range of disguises.

Delivering the evening’s most exquisitely defined masterclasses in stagecraft however are the performing legends Sally Ann Triplett and Clive Carter who play Madge and Horace Hardwick respectively. These two actors are just a crowd-whooping delight whose take on Outside Of That I Love You displays their experience and skill in knowing “just how” to deliver that killer lyric or gag punchline to perfection. To be truthful, the show’s jokes are as old as the hills – but in the hands of Triplett and Carter who cares? Their work puts the humour back into humanity and makes the evening soar! Stephen Ridley directs his 12 piece band masterfully, making fine work of the classic and much-loved melodies.

Top Hat does what it says on the tin. An evening of fabulous Broadway fun that will light up the country on its nationwide tour well into 2026.

Runs until 7th September, then touring

Photo credit: Johan Persson