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Music and moonlight and romance
Top that: style, elegance and a touch of class from Summer Strallen and Tom Chambers Top Hat Birmingham Hippodrome ***** THE golden age of Hollywood tap dances
its way back to life in this sparkling new musical based on the Fred
Astaire and Ginger Rogers classic. Tom Chambers (Holby City, Strictly Come Dancing
winner) and West End star Summer Strallen have the unenviable task of
recreating the roles played in their prime by the greatest dance duo of
all time. It is an impossible task but they come out of it with the
audience smiling happily and tapping their feet and you can’t ask for
more than that. The 1935 film, the fourth of the ten starring the
pair, is regarded as the best of the nine they made for RKO and was the
first written specifically for them with music by the legendary Irving
Berlin. It had just five numbers so another 10 have been
added from the 1,500-strong Berlin catalogue which means classics such
as Let’s Face the Music and Dance, the funny How Can I change
My Luck and the poignant Better Luck Next Time have been
included. The latter is the bittersweet Judy Garland number from
Easter Parade, sung by Miss Strallen, who has a beautiful voice. The plot is fluffy and thin as a supermodel on a diet, but that hardly matters. The film was merely a vehicle for Fred and Ginger to show off their dancing skills. That is what the audience wanted. They had the
likes of Jimmy Cagney for action and drama, Fred and Ginger were
moonlight and music and love and romance
as Berlin might have put it.
This fabulous stage
version has even more song and dance numbers but
keeps much of the wit and humour of the original – even if some of the
jokes are older than the film – with some fine comedy performances
particularly from Martin Ball (Les Miserables, Mary Poppins,
Wicked, Mamma Mia) as the rather vague and
remarkably rich London impresario Horace Hardwick and his sharp tongued
wife Madge played by Vivien Parry (Mamma Mia, Blood Brothers,
Fame) who tells us “I came out of my first
marriage handsomely. I got custody of his money.” She also had one of the best
lines in the show when Horace tells her she only married him because his
father had left him a fortune and she tells him not to be silly. “I
would have married you no matter who had left you the money.” Ricardo Afonso, who has just
left a three year stint as Galileo in We Will Rock You excels
with an over the top performance as the flamboyant dress designer
Alberto Beddini who could have been flown in straight
from a comic opera. Stephen Boswell as Bates the
eccentric butler-cum-manservant to the Hardwicks also shows a nice touch
of humour and farce to keep the plot, thin as it is, moving along. Set firmly in the 1930s Jerry
Travers (Chambers) is a Broadway star brought to London by
Hardwick to star in his West End show. Jerry is dancing in
Horace’s hotel suite and disturbs Dale Tremont (Strallen)
in the room below and she storms upstairs to complain whereupon Jerry
falls in love at first tap, so to speak, and
sets about wooing her. Unfortunately Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace,
a misunderstanding that takes the rest of the show to
unravel. Dale goes to Venice where she
is modeling gowns for Alberto and visiting her long time friend Madge so
Jerry chases her with Horace in tow. Much grabbing the wrong end of
the stick ensues with Horace accused of all
manner of infidelity, a wedding that never was and lots of dances
before everyone can live
happily ever after. The first half sets the scene
with the show gathering momentum as it drifts into farce
after the break.
The film was about the dancing and the musical does not disappoint in that respect with a huge cast including a 22 strong dance crew who must have worked long and hard to get such timing and precision. Not a noticeable step wrong all night. Astaire, assisted by choreographer Hermes Pan, set out to make as much noise as possible with tap, and Bill Deamer, the show's choreographer has kept that in mind. When more than 20 dancers are tapping in perfect unison, with canes to boot in Top Hat, White Tie and Tails any audience has to sit up and notice, indeed all the ensemble numbers are a joy to watch and listen to - a tribute to the amount of work that has gone in there. The show has also not made the
mistake of trying to do a sort of dance karaoke of the film. They have
kept the style and fashion of the times but not tried to copy the
routines step for step. Top Hat is undoubtedly heading
for the West End where I am sure it will be
set for a long run and I suspect tap dancing classes will be springing
up throughout the land. Chambers has a passion for tap
and it shows. He is no Astaire, but then who is,
as Variety noted Astaire started where the
rest stopped, but he shows some real flair and skill in his solo numbers
such as Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, widely regarded as
Astaire’s greatest solo and he dances well
with Strallen.
Chamber's voice is pleasant
and he has a nice, easy stage manner,
much in the mould of Astaire - although his American
accent does tend to drift from state to state - and he shows
winning Strictly Come Dancing was no fluke. Miss Strallen,
meanwhile, has a growing reputation as a West
End musical theatre star (Love Never Dies, The Sound of Music, The
Drowsy Chaperone) and you can see why. She can act, dance and sing
and looks the part and then some. It is unfortunate that there
did not seem to be any obvious chemistry
between the pair but that either happens or it doesn’t, you can’t script
it, but they, and the rest of the cast, managed to stop people looking
at their watches and shuffling in their seats for
nigh on three hours and that is no mean feat. Time just flew by.
A mention for Jason Winter who
just flowed with an easy grace as the shadow
dancer to Jerry in the scene where Dale complains about the noise and a
mention too about the costumes designed by Jon
Morrell which looked both beautiful and
authentic. We even had that famous ostrich
feather dress in Cheek to Cheek which even lost a few feathers –
now that is authentic. Mention too
for the magnificent Art Deco sets from Hildegard Bechtler which could
have come straight from a 1930’s movie lot
- and an expensive one at that. They
gave us gentlemen’s clubs, Broadway and West End theatres, a London
park, hotel lobbies, suites and rooms, Venice and even an aircraft all
seamlessly gliding in and out and with clever
linking scenes without the merest a hint of a
break. Clever lighting from Peter
Mumford showed a lot of thought has gone into the classy
production directed and co-written by Matthew
White while the music showed what happens when you invest a show with a
14 piece orchestra. The orchestra, under musical
director Dan Jackson, were superb filling the Hippodrome with
those wonderful Berlin melodies. Top Hat might be a tribute to a 76-year-old film but I suspect it could well be creating a new genre. No doubt somewhere there are already teams working on bringing other dance musicals from the golden age of the 30s and 40s to the stage, coming soon to a theatre near you, as they say. But don’t wait for the
next one to come along; this may be a
fabulous, glamorous celebration of an elegant era of
the cinema when style and sophistication were the hallmark of musical
comedy but this stage version is big
enough and certainly good enough to stand on its own
two tapping feet - a standing ovation at the end was If you remember the film then you have something compare it with, if not, then you can just sit back and enjoy. It is a wonderfully entertaining show in its own right. Top Hat is just top drawer and timeless. To 10-09-11. Roger
Clarke
IT'S
easy to see why this glamorous musical was such a hit as a movie in the
1930s with so many memorable songs, beautiful girls and, above all,
brilliant dancing. Starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the RKO
film sparkled with the music and lyrics of Irving Berlin, and this stage
version is a faithful interpretation of the silver screen hit. Directed by Matthew White, with Bill Deamer's
choreography, the show is enjoyable but not great, and it may be that
members of the audience who felt the urge to provide a standing
ovation were acting on a feeling of nostalgia. At three hours long it could do with a bit of
trimming, and much as I love musicals I found myself glancing, a shade
anxiously, at my watch well before the colourful finale. For me, the dancing was good, but only served to
emphasise the briilliance of television's Strictly Come Dancing. Time
marches on! Performed on a superb Art Deco set, Top Hat
features Tom Chambers - winner of the 2008 Strictly - as famous American
tap-dancer Jerry Travers who arrives in London to appear in his first
West End show and meets the lovely Dale Tremont, the girl of his dreams,
played by Summer Strallen, and follows her across Europe hoping to win
her. Chambers and Strallen are excellent both in song
and dance, and there is some fine comedy featuring Ricardo Alfonso
(flamboyant dress designer Alberto Beddini), and Stephen Boswell as
Bates, the snooty valet to impresario Horace Hardwick. A fairly thin story, but good on the eye and ear.
To 10.09.11. Paul Marston
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