Shoe shuffling knockout

The world of boxing is not the first setting you might choose for a musical.
Imagine: a nice song and a dance or two - then blood on the canvas.

Clifford Odets's Pulitzer-Prizewinning play of 1937 certainly didn't pull its punches, tackling the then thorny subjects of black exploitation, miscegenation and the morality of fighting. Yet it was turned into a musical in 1964, starring Sammy Davis Jnr as the young fighter struggling to get out of the Harlem ghetto.

That version has not been seen in this country for more than 30 years and Greenwich's new production has been three years in the making under director Rick Jacobs. Composer Charles Strouse (the man who also gave us the teeth-rottingly saccharine Annie) has added two new songs to his score (lyrics by Lee Adams), which ranges from the Sondheimesque Everything's Great, the slinky jazz of While The City Sleeps to ensemble number Don't Forget 127th Street, here jauntily choreographed by Mykal Rand.

Time may have diminished some of the show's impact, but its combination of aspiration, doomed love and things pugilistic still gets an audience on the emotional ropes. As Joe, a lean Jason Pennycooke suggests a boxer with some brains as well as brawn and demonstrates natty footwork both on the dancefloor and in the ring. Sally Ann Triplett is all wisecracks and yearning ballads as Lorna, the manager's mistress for whom Joe falls.

She's a Stockard Channing kinda gal.

Jacobs's production is slightly sluggish in places (there's plenty of spit but it needs a touch more polish), though it ultimately deals a knockout blow with a fight staged by Malcolm Ranson and a rousing gospel finale. After the Greenwich run, this certainly deserves to go a few extra rounds.

Until 12 July. Box office: 020 8858 7755.

Golden Boy