No one complained about the weather when students from Oxford University made it rain indoors as they delivered their own version of the 1952 classic, Singin’ in the Rain.

It didn’t matter that the female lead read theology at Worcester College or that the director was a second-year English student at St Anne’s – nothing about the show gave any indication that this was a student production. The dance moves were seamless, the lines delivered perfectly and all the hard-to-hit notes were hit.

The plot, which – for those who haven’t watched Gene Kelly’s masterpiece – tells the tale of the difficult transition from silent films to sound films in Hollywood in the late 1920s.

James Hyde’s impeccable performance as Don, a silent movie star who has to learned how to use his vocal chords, seemed almost unfairly good since he is now a professional actor based in London. Niall Docherty, a third-year English student at Merton College, was an ideal counterpart to Don’s occasional gravitas as his sidekick Cosmo. Kathy Peacock shone as Kathy Selden, an aspiring actress whose enchanting singing voice can no longer go unnoticed.

Her rendition of You Are My Lucky Star was technically, as well as emotionally, perfect. On the opposite – and much more grating – side of the spectrum, Annabel Mutale Reed, currently reading philosophy, politics and economics at Harris Manchester College, stole the show as Lina Lamont, a selfish star whose insufferable voice seems highly incompatible with a career in the talking movie industry. She carried out Ms Lamont’s strange, hard-to-place and infallibly hilarious accent throughout the play.

With a bit of comic relief, and a few well-rehearsed tap-dancing sequences, surviving the November drizzles should be a walk in the (rainy) park.

CLEMANCE MICHALLON 4/5