31 July – 5 August     

42^nd Street started life as a scandalous potboiler novel about the needy, seedy, slangy side of the grimy gulch known as Broadway, before being made into the classic movie set amid the Great Depression in 1933. A stage adaptation followed almost fifty years later. You might expect that the somewhat corny story of a small-town gal looking to change from chorus girl to a star would simply end up as an exercise in nostalgia.  

And it might have been, were it not for the fabulous direction by Jonathan Church, sharp design and a (mostly) excellent cast.

The show is the musical comedy performers’ musical comedy. Starting off with grainy newsreel film of Broadway, mass unemployment and protest marches we move into a functional rehearsal room where ageing diva Dorothy Brock (Samantha Womack) carries on with sugar daddy and gigolo Pat Denning (Oliver Farnworth) while baiting desperate director Julian Marsh (Michael Praed). The plot is fairly predictable, but what is not is the infectious energy that the fantastic cast of dancers inject into the Busby Berkeley type routines. Classic American songbook standards from the musical geniuses Harry Warren and Al Durbin are delivered afresh and with verve, assisted by the inventive and crisp choreography of Bill Deamer. I Only Have Eyes for You, Lullaby of Broadway, You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me, We’re In the Money, Shuffle off to Buffalo and the rousing title song are each given new life while preserving their sincerity and fun.

Sam Lips as Billy Lawler has energy to burn, while Praed convinces as the steely determined director with a sensitive side when he persuades Peggy Sawyer (Nicole-Lily Baisden) to rescue the show and take on the leading role.

Baisden is simply magnificent and you can not take your eyes off her. Her smile is as wide as Times Square, while her dancing simply dazzles. Baisden can’t help stealing scenes just by being there and she oozes stellar quality. She might have emerged as a star like her character Peggy, only she clearly already is one. What a talent!

The tap routines lift the show from tired, old-fashioned hoofing to thrilling drama. The entire ensemble rat-tat-tat gloriously, and the hypnotic rhythmic beat of shoes or canes simply makes the pulse race. Stamps, stomps, hops, slaps and slides are all there and more.

For a touring show, Robert Jones’s set and costume designs are superbly inventive with a pronounced art nouveau authenticity. The immaculately sharp set changes give the show even more drive as we move from backstage to onstage, Penn Station and gloriously evocative West Side Story style fire escapes. The show oozes style and substance and although there are some creaky elements including Les Dennis as Bert Barry and Anthony Ofoegbu as sugar-daddy Abner, they are more than compensated for by the rest of the cast including Faye Tozer as Dennis’ spirited songwriting partner and wife Maggie.

Top of the taps, with a thoroughly fresh take on an old-school show, why don’t you come and meet those dancing feet?

★★★★★  Bryan J Mason, 1 August 2023

Photographer credit: Johan Persson