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The Times
“Oh boy, this is an enjoyable evening which, at its best, simply soars”

By Dominic Maxwell

People complain that the West End is overrun with jukebox musicals. But hey, if you're going to stage a sequence of pre-existing songs strung together with a fanciful storyline, stage the best. Singin' in the Rain became a film in 1952 after Betty Comden and Adolph Green tailored a comical romance about a silent film star struggling with the birth of the talkies — The Artist salutes you — to the songs of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. And now Jonathan Church's production has arrived in London after causing a splash in Chichester last summer.

Oh boy, this is an enjoyable evening, which at its best simply soars. Church's production clings closely to the contours of the film, albeit with a few cuts (Cooper's dashing Don Lockwood simply bumps into Strallen's high-minded ingenue, Kathy Selden, rather than landing in her car) and one or two additions. The cast handles the Hollywood banter just swell. But while Cooper earns our respect as a singer and an actor, it's when this former ballet star dances that he earns our adulation.

In the film, the long Broadway Melody sequence is a gorgeous indulgence. Here, it's the high spot. It's an emphatically theatrical production number that brings the best out of Andrew Wright's choreography and Cooper's sinuous frame. Pure joy. But then so is the title tune, not just for Cooper's sodden steps but for the bucketing rain that he so wantonly sploshes into the first few rows.

Alas, there's no running up the wall in Crossley's set piece, Make 'Em Laugh. But there's a bit of everything else, as he flips and mugs and crashes his way through the song. Nicely done. After that, three slow songs together cause a slight lull. But then Cooper, Crossley and David Lucas as the dialogue coach turn the place wild in the rythmical interplay of Moses Supposes.

As the story intensifies, as our heroes devise a way to save Don's terrible talkie by turning it into a musical, the show becomes an extroverted entity in itself rather than just a nifty pastiche. And as Don's awful New Yorker co-star, Lina Lamont, Katherine Kingsley gives a star-making performance. She fully justifies the decision to give Lina her own number — only a really good singer can sing that badly.

The show itself is a bit of a fairground ride: a cautious start, but then it's up and running and you won't want to think of anything else. "Gotta dance!" goes one of Cooper's memorable refrains. Too right you do, Adam.