Everyone was waiting for the rain. With Adam Cooper dancing in it, wetter than ever was demanded of him in his days as a principal at the Royal Ballet. Would he slip? No. Would he splash? Oh yes!
Nothing beats the swing and precision of a ballet-trained leg for propelling rainbow skeins of water through an auditorium. The front rows, clutching the management’s thoughtful plastic sheets, can tell their grandchildren yet unborn that they had spray kicked at them by one of the coolest men on the planet.
For it is Cooper’s Don Lockwood — athletic and joyful, charming and cheesy, boyish and truthful — who gives this spectacular nonsense its edge. It is, to be honest, a thin plot, held up by terrific song-and-dance and the 1920s theme of the birth of the talkies. There are a few great lines: “We can’t have tap dancing, the picture takes place during the French Revolution.” But it needs pizzazz to inflate it. Which it gets. On stage, this 1980s adaptation of Comden and Green’s 1951 Gene Kelly vehicle breathed more life, for me, than the MGM movie.
On screen, we never knew what a feat it was (Debbie Reynolds says it was as hard as childbirth, Donald O’Connor landed in hospital after Make ’em Laugh, Gene Kelly’s feet bled). On stage, we live it with them: every toppling bench, soaking and cake-flinging is real. Andrew Wright’s choreography exploits both the balletic grace of the star and the raunchy show-dance idiom: and it is a tribute to Cooper’s acting ability that when he does break into dance it is a surprise. A good one.
Scarlett Strallen is a beguiling Kathy, evoking stroppiness and hurt as well as being able to leap from a champagne tower. Katherine Kingsley does a wonderful job, too, as the shrill, deluded, peroxide silent-movie star with a helium New Yoik twang. She bravely sings out of tune while brandishing a formidable marabou-trimmed cleavage — a comedy talent to watch. Daniel Crossley fizzes hilarious energy as the show-stopping Cosmo.
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Altogether, fab summer fun. Jonathan Church’s direction leaves no absurdity unserved: priceless silent-movie spoofs are done live and on the big screen (honour to Ian William Galloway’s video design). Oh, and on no account leave early. It’s not over till — never mind.
Box office: 01243 781312, to Sept 10
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