A Golden Holden

It's 1922 and everything about Millie Dillmount (Amanda Holden) is modern. She bobs her hair, wears her waist low, and gets drunk at speakeasies.

And just like a modern woman should, she's taken charge of her destiny. She's determined to marry her boss. Only her boss doesn't know it yet.

Richard Morris's patchy spoof film from 1967 has been thoroughly reworked and made into a very entertaining musical.

The new numbers, by Jeanine Tesori, have an authentic 1920s Irving Berlin feel to them, and other music has been adapted with witty sophistication: a Gilbert and Sullivan patter-song becomes a spectacular chorus number, and Tchaikovsky's Sugar Plum Fairy is turned into a hilarious gin-joint ballet.

There are one or two moments when the froth begins to dissolve, but Michael Mayer's direction always manages to pick up speed again. Amanda Holden does an extremely creditable job in the title role, if perhaps just a touch lacking in vulnerability, and belts out her ballads with panache.

Maureen Lipman turns in a fine comic performance as an embittered Chinese slave trader (yup, there's even a deliciously silly sub-plot), Mark Warman's music direction is spot-on, and the supporting cast are uniformly excellent.