Top Hat The Musical At Milton Keynes Theatre Review
DISCLOSURE – TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW
Reviewed by Janine Rumble
Last night, I was transported back in time to the 1930s through the glorious Top Hat Musical by Irving Berlin. Wow! What a show and what a euphoric feeling you have upon watching it. We wanted to put on the big glamorous dresses and sashay and tap dance all the way back to the car park. The show really sweeps you along with it and it is such a happy, silly, beautiful musical, that you cannot help smiling all the way through. The gentleness of the time exudes from the stage bringing happy smiles and laughter along the way.
Top Hat, The Musical is a Chichester Festival Theatre Production and boy, what a production it was…from the script to the costumes, to the very clever sets that transported you from one decadent city to another, it was all just wonderful. This classic story, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin is based on the RKO Motion Picture, which starred Fred Astaire as the tap dancer Jerry Travers and Ginger Rogers as Dale Tremont. This was adapted for the stage by Matthew White and Howard Jacques and directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall.
Top Hat, is a musical comedy, following the life of a tap dancer, Jerry Travers, played by the incredibly talented Phillip Attmore, who comes to London to star in a show produced by the philandering Horace Hardwick, played by James Hume. In London, Jerry meets and the beautiful Dale Tremont, played by the brilliant Amara Okereke, who he falls madly in love with. She mistakes him for Horace, a man married to Madge Hardwick, his long-suffering wife, played by Sally Ann Triplett and flees the country, Dale is also the love interest of Alberto Beddini, a fashion designer, played hilariously by Alex Gibson-Giorgio. As she flees London for Venice, thinking she is being pursued and wooed by her friend, Madge’s husband, she agrees to marry Alberto, but luckily, Horace’s valet, Bates, played with great comedic effect by James Clyde, in one of his many hilarious disguises, is the priest, so the marriage is not legal. It then comes to light the mistake she has made and she confesses she is in love with Jerry and the two marry. It is a very simple story, interspersed with tap dancing, brilliant songs, such as Top Hat, White Tails and Cheek to Cheek and wonderful dancing from the superbly talented cast.
The costumes, designed by Yvonne Milnes and Peter Mckintosh were of the time, making the production all the more believable. The costumes were just gorgeous; we wanted to have dresses like the ones we saw on stage so we could dance and sashay along the corridors at work. With so many cast members and the wonderful costumes they all wore, you really felt transported to the heyday of the 1930s. The stage became alive with a riot of colour, decadence and glamour.
The set, designed by Peter Mckintosh, just exuded glamour and made the visuals for the audience even more glamourous and decadent. It was a very clever set design, with the main 1930s themed back drop remaining the same, but with a rotating stage that changed the rooms as it rotated from one to the other, simple props added to the scene by the cast, added to the room being portrayed. So simple, yet so effective.
All in all, it was a wonderful production, full of colour, glamour, tap dancing, silliness, laughter, swooning and wishing we could have been a part of it. A truly wonderful night.
We did question if Irving Berlin, when he wrote this all those many years ago, ever thought that people would still be enjoying Top Hat, The Musical 90 years later and how it would stand the test of time! That audiences would want to be transported back to those decadent times through his simple tale! I like to think he would be impressed, I know we were impressed last night and said that it is one of those musicals that you would want to go and see again. It was lovely to be able to leave our lives behind for one evening and to be transported to another world, another lifetime ago, where life seemed so simple and so glamourous. I highly recommend going to see this, you do not have to have seen the original 1935 film to enjoy it. I have never seen the film but would quite like to watch it now having seen this production. I give this 5/5 stars. It was amazing! So romantic and funny. The music and the costumes swept you away to another time.
Rating: 5/5
Top Hat, The Musical is on at Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday 27th September. Tickets are available from £15 and can be purchased from the theatre box office or www.atgtickets.com