Sonning's tip top Top Hat

Top Hat at The Mill at Sonning until December 30. Review by DEREK ANSELL

SO good they did it twice – last year’s production of Top Hat was a great success, praised by many. Others regretted they missed it, so The Mill decided to do it again.

The show is based on the 1935 film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But spectacular musicals only work well if the music is good and this show has music written by Irving Berlin, one of the great composers of popular music.

Prominent was Puttin’ On The Ritz, Cheek To Cheek and Let’s Face The Music & Dance, classics all. Berlin composed an estimated 1,000 songs, many of them memorable. Mind you he had plenty of time to do it, he lived to be 101.

One of the most surprising things about this show was hearing young actors singing Berlin songs in the style of the 1935 movie and doing it so well.

Jon Labey and Billie Kay played Fred and Ginger. No, hang on, I mean they played Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont. Their acting, singing and dancing was impressive throughout as was that of the rest of the cast.

Julia Nagle did a good comic turn as Madge, a veteran of more than one marriage who claimed success in her first when she divorced and got custody of the money. Paul Kemble played a put-upon husband well, providing several laughs as he claimed he was so unlucky, he went to a funeral and ‘caught the bouquet’. More humour from Brendan Cull as a not-so-loyal manservant and Andy Rees kept everyone laughing with his parody of an Italian with broken English. Other actor dancers who impressed in the colourful routines were Gabriela Gregorian, Leah Harris, Joe Boyle and Hannah Amin.

The story line of Travers’ journey to London and his mix up with Dale, who thinks he’s married to someone else, was almost incidental. The music by a three-piece band often sounding like a full orchestra, the stunning dance routines, singing and dancing and acting, were all spectacular. Even the modest Mill stage looked bigger and more impressive with the design of the set that stretched the walls out into the auditorium and with Art Deco shapes on the backdrops. The actors made it look terrific, but much credit must go to the ‘backstage creatives’, director Jonathan O’Boyle, choreographer Ashley Nottingham and set designer Jason Denvir.