Top Hat ★★★★

Nearly ninety years after it first graced the silver screen, the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire-starring Top Hat remains a byword for elegance and charm. Chichester Festival Theatre’s new production aims to recapture that spirit for a live audience and, for the most part, succeeds with some considerable sparkle.

A frothy confection of mistaken identities and transatlantic glamour, Broadway star Jerry Travers (Phillip Attmore – Hello Dolly) falls head over tap shoes for society heiress Dale Tremont (Amara Okereke – My Fair Lady), only for a muddle of assumptions and disguises to delay their inevitable romantic conclusion. It’s lightweight stuff, but in director Kathleen Marshall’s hands, it is carried with a knowing wink and just enough pace to keep the audience invested.

If the plot is a mere trifle, Irving Berlin’s classic score is bulletproof. A veritable songbook of standards – “Cheek to Cheek”, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails” – paired with a live orchestra and full-bodied chorus line, ensuring it is difficult not to be swept along.

This production’s real strength lies in its attention to the mechanics of style. With the expected sure-footed choreography, the set pieces – including a show-stopping tap routine that stretches joyously across the stage – deliver pure Hollywood escapism. The costumes, all feathers, satin gowns and razor-sharp tuxedos shining on the revolving art deco set, complete the illusion.

Performances are consistently strong. The leads carry their roles with style, their chemistry light and playful if never especially charged. The real comic energy is injected by the bravura supporting cast (James Hume, Sally Ann Triplett, James Clyde, and Alex Gibson-Giorgio). The humour is broad, sometimes very much of its era, but the players lean into it with such gusto that even most of the dustier gags land. In truth, the production would have benefited from featuring more of them. When the show gives them room, they dazzle; at other times, they are shuffled off too quickly.

Like the movie itself, Top Hat can sometimes feel a touch too gilded, smoothing over any rough edges that might have lent it greater bite or surprise. The mistaken identity plot stretched across two acts inevitably feels thin, and no amount of satin or sequins can disguise that entirely.

Few, though, will come seeking innovation here. This is a show designed to provide warmth, dazzle and a heady rush of escapism. On those terms, Top Hat delivers handsomely. While it pays due homage to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, it never feels like a museum piece. Instead, it presents itself as a polished entertainment in its own right: shiny, tuneful and thoroughly good-humoured.