Top Hat – Birmingham Hippodrome

Book: Matthew White and Howard Jacques

Music and Lyrics: Irving Berlin

Director: Kathleen Marshall

Fifteen years is a long time between visits. The last professional production of Top Hat at Birmingham Hippodrome — the Tom Chambers version that many in this city will remember fondly — felt, even then, like a rare treat – golden-age Hollywood musical translated to the stage with considerable wit and style. Now there’s a new production doing the rounds, and the good news is that it more than justifies the wait.

The 1935 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film has long since passed into the canon of classic American entertainment, and the stage adaptation — book by Matthew White and Howard Jacques — has played successfully in the West End and on tour since 2011. Marshall’s production uses the full force of Irving Berlin’s songbook to delightful effect, and from the very first moments, it is clear this is something genuinely special.

The set by Peter McKintosh is superb — an exquisitely detailed evocation of 1930s Art Deco glamour that functions not merely as backdrop but as an active participant in the evening. Lit with extraordinary precision by Tim Mitchell, the design shifts and transforms throughout: colours deepening, light moving in tight synchronisation with the music and action, the whole thing feeling at times more than a stage set. It supports the choreography beautifully, and at times you can’t help but wonder whether you’re watching design and dance or something altogether more unified. The costumes by Yvonne Milnes and McKintosh are equally fine — all white tie and beaded gowns, the period rendered with classic elegance.

The plot, such as it is, follows Broadway star Jerry Travers to London, where he falls for fashion model Dale Tremont, who mistakenly believes him to be her friend’s husband. The resulting misunderstandings and complications give us a storyline that’s extremely thin but Marshall finds so much comedy in it that this rarely feels like a problem. The direction keeps the farce moving with precision, and what might feel like a prop for the songs becomes, here, a genuinely funny evening.

Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers is not a name widely known in the UK, but he is extremely well-suited to this role. His physicality in the dance numbers is excellent — there is a natural ease about him that recalls the Astaire style — and his singing voice carries the Berlin standards with confidence. His faux-cockney accent, deployed in several scenes, is pitched squarely in the Dick Van Dyke school, and the production is clearly aware of this, playing the joke rather than hiding from it. Amara Okereke brings real warmth and assurance to Dale Tremont: her dancing is excellent, her voice equally at home in the up-tempo numbers and the slow ballads, and there is genuine chemistry between the two leads that gives the romantic arc something more than the text itself might provide.

James Hume and Kirsty Sparks – covering for the indisposed  Emma Williams – make a highly credible pair as Horace and Madge Hardwick — he’s a well-meaning idiot firmly under his wife’s thumb, she’s equipped with a sharp tongue and a well-judged put-down for every occasion. Their comedy duet Outside of That, I Love You is nicely handled, the pair finding good rhythmic interplay in Berlin’s lyric. Alex Gibson-Giorgio’s Alberto Beddini is a suitably stereotypical Italian lover — hot-tempered, extravagant, ultimately more interested in his fashion designs than his romantic pursuits — and Gibson-Giorgio plays the type with enough self-awareness to keep it on the right side of caricature.

It is James Clyde, however, as Bates — Horace Hardwick’s valet and general factotum — who comes closest to stealing the show. Clyde brings a beautifully calibrated comic timing to the role, every entrance and reaction landing with apparent effortlessness.

Irving Berlin’s score remains a genuine pleasure throughout. Cheek to Cheek, Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, Isn’t This a Lovely Day, and Puttin’ on the Ritz are delivered with appropriate period style, with Marshall’s choreography honouring the same tradition, with well-drilled ensemble numbers and classic romantic duets. It’s a joy to watch.

Top Hat is, without question, a piece of fluffy frivolity. The book is light, the stakes are low, the world it inhabits bears no relation to anything going on outside. Sometimes all you need is something that can take your mind off things for a couple of hours, and this more than fulfils that. The result is impeccably crafted, light-hearted entertainment.

Runs until 7 March 2026 and on tour