We’d been very much looking forward to Top Hat, which has arrived at London’s Southbank Centre this Christmas as part of a national tour. The original 2011 stage adaptation of the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie swept the Oliver Awards, picking up Best New Musical; this revival, first produced earlier this year at the Chichester Festival Theatre, opened to rave reviews. It’s also directed and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Kathleen Marshall, who was responsible for the incredible choreography we saw in the dazzling revival of Anything Goes at the Barbican a few years ago.
So does it live up to expectations? Unfortunately not. That’s not to say it isn’t enjoyable in places – the singing is perfectly solid, the orchestrations are nice, the costumes look the part, the choreography impresses on occasion. But Top Hat falls flat largely because the narrative is just so flimsy. We weren’t expecting Shakespeare of course – we were absolutely expecting some lighthearted fluff – but the plot is so wafer thin and so drawn out that the pace just feels sluggish. Top Hat commits the cardinal sin of theatre: it’s just quite boring, quite a lot of the time.
It centres around a will-they-won’t-they story between Broadway star Jerry Travers (Phillip Attmore) and love interest Dale Tremont (Amara Okereke), who meet by chance as they’re staying at the same hotel. Aside from a case of mistaken identity – which we were somewhat incredulous about, as it’s so farcical – there’s not really anything else to it, and yet it’s drawn out for two and a half hours. The stakes feel so low throughout that we didn’t feel invested enough to care how it would turn out.
It’s a shame, as Top Hat really does have some cracking tunes – and these are well performed – but beyond that there’s not much to recommend really. A missed opportunity.
GAY TIMES gives Top Hat – 2/5
More information can be found here.
Latest
