TOP HAT

This year’s musical revival from Chichester Festival Theatre is Irving Berlin’s Top Hat. Built around the 1935 Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger’s film, with more of Berlin’s songs added to the mix, it triumphs way beyond its flimsy plot. But the silly story which only really comes to life after the interval is almost an irrelevance when delivered by such a talented company.

Phillip Attmore and company, Photo: Johan Persson

To start what will be a list of superlatives the chorus, you will seldom see such a team of brilliant dancers tapping there way through number after number, precision, athleticism, rythm and character. Add to this very fine singing, that delicious Hollywood choral sound delivered, in particular by the ladies in Dancing Cheek To Cheek, an ethereal sound so typical of those great films. And on top of all this, every member of that chorus line is charged with delivering characters, from bell boys to chorus girls in feathers, holiday makers and hoteliers, they colour the whole so delightfully.

Next to the setting, a feast of art deco detail, furnishings, pattern… and all seamlessly shifting from Broadway to the West End and finally to Venice. Peter McKintosh has conjured up a bejewelled rendering of an age of frivolity and excess and when joined by Yvonne Milnes in the wardrobe department their costume confections know no bounds. It is a visual delight from start to finish illuminated by Tim Mitchell’s delightful and sparkling lighting design, all so far maintaining CFT’s incredible track record for brilliant musical theatre… and that’s before I move on to the principals!

The band are of course charged with delivering some of the best known tunes of 20th century musical theatre, tunes that are so familiar that we want to hear them played in a recognisable form. This we get from a large and rock solid orchestra the like of which we seldom get in this world of tiny pit bands, electronic keyboards and backing tracks. It’s luscious and rich, and driven with both power and delicacy by MD Stephen Ridley.

James Clyde is so very funny as the sardonic butler Bates, with so many funny moments, sharp lines and ridiculous costumes, his appearances bring some of the biggest laughs of the evening and all delivered with the gravitas needed to make it work.

Alex Gibson-Georgio is the flamboyant and undeniably camp fashion designer Alberto Beddini, hell bent, with the emphasis on bent, determined to take Venice by storm with his couture frocks. In the final twists in the tale one cannot help think that he is being saved from what then would have been known as a lavender marriage. And in the second half he gets a solo number, Latins Know How, in which he gets to show off a very fine voice and dance skills.

Clive Carter and Phillip Attmore, Photo: Johan Persson

Clive Carter gets some of the best lines in the show in his role as wannabe impresario Horace Hardwick, a self confessed philanderer who has sunk his money into a musical, yes the show within a show conceit that American musical creators went back to time and time and time again. It’s a wonderful performance filled with charm and humour as he bumbles through the twists and turns of marriage and failed infidelity.

Sally Ann Triplett, Jeremy Batt and company, Photo: Johan Persson

We had to wait until act two to meet the wife Madge, but that wait was so worthwhile when we are greeted by the brash brilliance of Sally Ann Triplett, every inch the grand dame of musical comedy in true Hollywood fashion. This is one of the many highlights of the evening, delivering some of the best and funniest lines in the show with an assured hand and belting out those numbers with the sort of gravelly power of a Merman, but more tunefully it has to be said.

Lucy St. Louis and Phillip Attmore, Photo: Johan Persson

And vocal style and perfection leads me on to the delightful Lucy St. Louis whose perfect phrasing and purity of voice really capture the period charm of the whole. Her playing of the romantic lead is of course first class, and very believable, but it is that magically beautiful voice that raises the hairs on the back of the neck and raises the show to even higher levels. Totally understandable, when you read through her previous roles and triumphs, that she is cast so perfectly in this and uses her fine operatic voice to deliver every number with such clarity and precision.

Phillip Attmore and company. Photo: Johan Persson

Last and of course not least we come to Phillip Attmore, toast of Broadway and quite rightly so. If you’re going to deliver an Astaire classic then you need a dancer and performer who can live up to the legend. Attmore is more, and so much more. This guy can dance, he taps like he has the devil in his shoes, he moves round the stage with elegance one minute and the then flies across again tapping out steps like machine gun fire. And he looks good too, certainly more dashingly handsome than Fred ever was, which certainly adds to making the story more believable. Not that there is much to believe in a the very silly and flimsy plot. It doesn’t matter a jot, this is a genuinely delicious evening of superlative song and dance, beautifully and masterfully directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall whose prowess on both sides of the Atlantic come to play here in recreating a period classic with lashings of style. Top Hat delivers in every sense and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face then I suspect you are dead.

Andrew Kay

24 July

Chichester Festival Theatre

Rating: