Singin in the Rain - It's Worth Getting' Wet For!

It may have only taken Gene Kelly one and a half days to shoot Singin' in the Rain but 62 years on, this warm, uplifting musical is still knockin' 'em dead in the aisles!

The stage version, like the movie, is pure Hollywood and remains faithful to the film. Only a fool would tamper with its winning formula - tap dancing blokes, leggy women, love, colour, clean comedy and an iconic dance routine and song.

And the public loved it, even the front row groupies, some of whom who had arrived with brollies, anticipating the soaking they were about to receive at the close of Act I!

Interestingly the film - I personally loved Donald O'Connor's Make 'em Laugh - was probably one of the earliest examples of a juke box musical........a string of well known existing songs woven together by a script designed with two purposes in mind, to feed a public hungry for Hollywood and to keep movie moguls in the lifestyle they had become accustomed to!

In this instance it featured much of the early catalogue work of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, the latter being the lyricist who served as an associate producer on MGM's The Wizard of Oz, which played its part in immortalising Judy Garland.

All I Do is Dream of You, You are My Lucky Star and, of course, Singin' in the Rain; they were all there.

And the production? It was beautifully staged and Andrew Wright's choreography was sublime if, at times, a little over balletic for me; more in keeping, perhaps, with Kelly's An American in Paris. Nevertheless the tap dancing numbers were fantastic and Make 'em Laugh a triumph for director Jonathan Church, ably assisted by Wright of course.

For me there were a couple of exemplary performances, Stephane Anelli's Cosmo Brown - beautifully delivered dialogue, excellent timing and dancing; a good all rounder. James Leece as Don Lockwood - the Kelly part - was good, but not brilliant. Trained at the Royal Ballet School he was foot perfect but, in the title number, he lacked the smiling softness and gentle personality that Kelly cultivated so beautifully. When you feature in an iconic role every eye is upon you. It's like getting the Hamlet soliloquy just slightly wrong, everyone knows! And no, Cosmo didn't do a back flip on the wall, although there were a couple of clever techniques that prevented the moment from being wasted; health and safety folks!

Vicky Binns as the squeaky prima donna Lina Lamont was nearly there but not quite. A lovely performance but her Down Town New York accent was interspersed with a few too many northern vowels. If you are going to do a Bronx accent then make sure you're perfect because it's harder to sustain than the 'middle American' version!

Singin' in the Rain is set in 1927 and charts the transition of the movie industry from the silent era to the 'talkies' whilst gently mocking the likes of silent great, John Gilbert, who failed to make it in the world of sound.

As you watch it you see and hear so many other musicals passing before your eyes - Crazy for You, Chicago, Mack & Mabel........they all seemed to be in there.

However, if you could bottle this production and sell it as the elixir of life somehow, I think, you'd quickly be knocking Bill Gates off the podium as one of the richest men in the world.

Until September 13th at Bradford Alhambra