Top Hat review – ravishing musical taps immaculately off the silver screen

Chichester Festival theatreTwinkly eyed Phillip Attmore and silky-singing Lucy St Louis have natural chemistry in this stylish, witty adaptation of the mistaken identity dramaIt looks like there may be trouble ahead in the first tripping moments of this silver screen musical adaptation. Several performers slip and fall during the ensemble opening number – Puttin’ on the Ritz. The show is stopped, the stage mopped up (its wetness apparently caused by unexpected condensation), and then the show really does proceed to put on the ritz.Adapted by Matthew White and Howard Jacques, its drama of mistaken identity faithfully follows the 1935 movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers but it has more Irving Berlin tunes, each more divine than the last. Phillip Attmore plays Jerry Travers, the avowed bachelor and Broadway star whose head is turned by the independently minded fashion model Dale Tremont (Lucy St Louis). She, in turn, mistakes him for the older, married Horace Hardwick (Clive Carter) and the whole thing plays out like an American Restoration drama but with added tap dance and swing. Continue reading...

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