One for a broadway best

Ethel Merman (1908-1984), star of such shows as Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy! undoubtedly had the most powerful lungs and most powerful personality on Broadway. But as she acknowledges at one point in this likeable celebration of her life: 'You wouldn't wanna see me/ As Mimi in Bohemee.'

Call Me Merman comes from the creative team which also produced Dorothy Fields Forever and has the same basic format - a bit of biography and lots of fantastic songs.

But here, a more realistic framing device is imposed on the material (we're supposed to be at a cabaret rehearsal in 1961) which creaks along with increasing implausibility. And sometimes Neil McArthur's arrangements fall into an inappropriate schmaltzy modern-Broadway style: Cole Porter's crisp classic I Get A Kick Out Of You collapses into a heap of over-arpeggiated mush, for example.

But Angela Richards gives an impressive account of Merman's foghorn technique and ballsy manner, and Susannah Fellows is simply stunning as her backing singer Kitty, bringing the house down with her yodelling account of You Can't Get A Man With A Gun. Great material and good performances overall; it's not a bad way to beat the New Year blues.