It’s the women who impress in this reworked, airy Cole Porter musical set among a glamorous but feckless American elite, with Helen George very much in the lead. The Call the Midwife star brings a pert, barefoot verve and a powerful set of pipes to heiress Tracy Lord, who wavers between three men on the eve of a grand but ill-conceived society wedding.
It’s a star turn but George shares honours and space with Felicity Kendal as Tracy’s mother and Carly Mercedes Dyer as Liz, one half of the journalistic duo deployed to spy on her nuptials. As for the men, including Julian Ovenden and Freddie Fox as Tracy’s rival suitors… well, all I can say is thank God for Nigel Lindsay as the drunken Uncle Willie. He brings hilarity and an undertone of threat to proceedings: he also brings the house down with the syncopated first act closer, Now You Have Jazz.
