By Clare Jenkins, January 2026
There may be trouble ahead (there already is – don’t you read the news? Ed), but while this fizzy touring production of Top Hat is on the road – well, as composer Irving Berlin put it in his classic song ‘Cheek to Cheek’, “let’s face the music and dance”.
Based on the iconic 1935 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film, the glitz-and-glamour musical – a sort of Depression-era Strictly – was adapted for the stage back in 2011 by Matthew White and Howard Jacques, winning an Olivier Award in the process. The mistaken identity storyline may be as light and frothy as some of Yvonne Milnes and Peter McKintosh’s costumes (a catwalk of floppy feathers, chic crepe de chine, swirling silk and sleek satin, along with a fair few tailored tuxedoes), but the rest is Hollywood silver, if not quite gold.
Directed by Kathleen Marshall, herself a Tony-Award winner, it’s tirelessly pacey, with dialogue that crackles with wisecracks: “I’m a nervous flyer. I’m fine until I get to the airport and see that word Terminal.” It also benefits from a live band, conducted by Luke Holman.
“Smooth-talking”
McKintosh’s revolving Art Deco sets – opulent bedrooms, elegant hotel receptions, lavish lounges – all appear at the flick of a switch within the arc of a huge gold and electric blue half-moon Big Ben-style clockface. Kathleen Marshall’s consistently energetic choreography covers everything from clickety-click tap to dreamy, floaty numbers. And she’s handsomely served by both the leads and the ensemble, whose dancing is unfailingly immaculate, whether in linked-arm, niftily rotating chorus lines or fleet-footed solos.
Phillip Attmore (triple Astaire Award-winning, for the record) plays Jerry Travers, the smooth-talking, loose-limbed Broadway hoofer and confirmed bachelor, arriving in London to open a new show. Trying out his tap-dancing manoeuvres in his hotel room is a great way to annoy sleek fashion model Dale Tremont (Lindsay Atherton standing in for Amara Okereke on press night) who, in the room below, is trying to get her beauty sleep.
James Hume is the bumbling Horace Hardwick, Jerry’s producer and the purveyor of neon-lit one-liners and groaningly corny jokes: “A man is incomplete when he’s not married. After that, he’s finished.”
“Smoothly synchronised”
He’s also henpecked by his razor-sharp battleaxe of a wife Madge (Kirsty Sparks, living up to her name): “You only married me because my father left me a fortune,” Horace complains. “Oh, I’d have married you whoever left you the money,” she snaps back. Absent from the first half, when she does turn up, the chemistry between her and Horace, especially when they sing ‘Outside of That, I Love You’, rather overshadows that of Jerry and Dale’s relationship, despite the latter’s smoothly synchronised duets.
Alex Gibson-Giorgio goes wildly over the top as Dale’s cod-Italian fashion designer and would-be suitor Alberto. Horace’s British valet Bates (James Clyde), meanwhile, is a true comic turn, whether disguised as an “ageing but not unattractive dowager duchess” or as a hapless gondolier, when the action shifts to Venice.
The plot may be as ridiculous as Alberto’s Dali-esque moustache and leopard-skin socks. But with dancing this assured, sets and costumes this stylish, and songs like ‘Isn’t This a Lovely Day’, ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’, ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ – and, of course, ‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’ –then, to quote Berlin again: “All the cares that hung around me through the week/Seem to vanish like a gambler’s lucky streak”.
A little bit of nostalgic Heaven on a grey, wet January night.
images: Johan Persson
Top Hat is at the Sheffield Lyceum Theatre until Saturday
Clare Jenkins( Writer )
Clare’s dream is to live in a hotel suite, safe from the bother of boiler breakdowns and crashing computers. Thanks to her husband Stephen McClarence’s work as a national newspaper travel writer, she’s been lucky enough to stay at hotels across the UK, India and many other countries – and has loved (nearly) every minute. As a journalist herself, she was a regular contributor to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for over 20 years and has made features and documentaries for Radios 3 and 4. She’s also a former theatre reviewer for The Stage magazine and, with her husband, co-author of Teatime at Peggy’s: A Glimpse of Anglo-India.
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