After the juicy haul of Olivier Awards for Chichester's West End transfer of Sweeney Todd, it's not surprising to find this ebullient theatre, riding high under artistic director Jonathan Church, starting its 2013 Festival season with another musical.
The Pajama Game (1954), with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and the book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell, is one of the classics of the American canon. Yet it remains under-known over here. After this delicious production, I very much doubt that will still be the case.
Unionisation in a pajama factory might not sound the most promising material for a musical but try thinking that after you’ve heard the likes of Hey There (You with the Stars in Your Eyes), Once-a-Year-Day and Steam Heat. It’s a show sizzling with hit songs, the positive energy from which supercharges proceedings right from the opening moments. Nine oversize sewing machines rest on workbenches manned by an excitable — and tuneful — workforce, who are demanding a seven and a half cent pay rise. New factory superintendent Sid Sorokin (Hadley Fraser) is determined to make his mark by playing the tough guy but he hasn’t banked on the Grievance Committee coming in the shapely form of Babe Williams (Joanna Riding).
Director Richard Eyre demonstrated with his landmark production of Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre that he knows his way around a classic musical and so he proves again here, with supreme confidence.
There’s ease, grace and loveliness in every scene and he’s greatly aided by some cherishably limber choreography from Stephen Mear in a number of eye-catching set-pieces. These employees do so much dancing that it must be a welcome relief when they eventually sit down to work.
Fraser and Riding sing strongly and produce convincing sparks of mutual attraction and are buoyed by a host of finely tuned supporting turns. Claire Machin is a sassy secretary in the boss’s office and Peter Polycarpou a perilous knife-thrower of a jealous lover. Hello again West End, I’d say.
Until June 8 (01243 781312, cft.org.uk)
