Gershwin resurfaces in West End

Some of Gershwin's finest songs are to receive a long-overdue West End reprise when the musical My One And Only swims into view at the Piccadilly Theatre next month.

Janie Dee, who scooped Best Actress honours at the 1999 Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her performance as an android in Comic Potential, also makes a welcome return in the show.

Set in New York during the heady Twenties chronicled by Damon Runyon - when dames were dames and guys were rarely gentlemen - it follows the fortunes of swimming-troupe member Edythe Herbert and her beau Captain Billy Buck Chandler, played by musical oldhand Tim Flavin.

Dee said: "Edythe has just swum the Channel, while Billy Buck is desperate to become the first man to fly from New York to Paris. All she wants is a guy who wants to dance and be romantic and sweep her off her feet - and he is the perfect man, until he says, 'I want to be famous.' "

She added: "It's great to be doing a musical set in New York during that period. There was an energy about it that infects the musical."

The show, which starts previewing on 9 February, has never before graced the West End - despite its Tony-winning run with Twiggy on Broadway in the Eighties. It was written in 1982 by librettists Peter Stone and Timothy S Mayer.

The score is largely taken from Gershwin's Funny Face - first made famous by Fred and Adele Astaire in 1927 - but incorporates other classic Gershwin songs.

Standards peppered through the show include Nice Work If You Can Get It, 'S Wonderful and Strike Up The Band.