Copacabana: The Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, near Newbury (From The Oxford Times)

Copacabana: The Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, near Newbury

3:03pm Wednesday 21st July 2010 in

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How much toothpaste can you squeeze out of a tube? It’s a question you could well ask about the Barry Manilow musical Copacabana. Starting life as a catchy single in 1978, Copacabana went on to become a TV movie, then an hour-long stage show. Finally it was extended into a three-hour (including interval) musical extravaganza in 1994.

If anyone can capitalise on the full-length show it is surely the Watermill’s dream team of director/choreographer Craig Revel Horwood and music arranger Sarah Travis. With an award-winning production of Spend Spend Spend! most recently under their belts (a revival tours to the Oxford Playhouse in October), it is easy to imagine the Watermill duo licking their lips at the prospect of Copacabana’s be-sequinned, up-tempo, dance numbers, not to mention the accompanying smoochy love story.

The ratio of sequins to titillating bare flesh (both male and female) varies from number to number, because the show is set first in the Copa nightclub in New York, then in the Tropicana, Havana. At the Copa, harassed manager Sam (a most convincing characterisation from Julian Littman) auditions wide-eyed, innocent Lola, newly arrived from “Tulsa, Okla”. The audition is a disaster — until cool, handsome Copa songwriter and dancer Tony (Edward Baker-Duly — pictured right) gets involved. Result: Lola is hired, and falls instantly in love with Tony. All is well until thoroughly nasty Rico (Antony Reed, suitably chilling) turns up. Rico, an Italian gangster, is in town to “visit his Godfather”, and finger fresh talent for the Tropicana, which he owns. In tow is now-waning Tropicana star Conchita (a heartfelt performance from Basienka Blake).

While the Copacabana storyline gets few marks for originality, it does offer Revel Horwood and Travis plenty of opportunities. They start with a pulsating version of the rather prosaically named Copa Opening: its top hats, tails, and splayed hand gestures suggest a hot mix of Fred Astaire and Al Jolson. But there’s much inventive and original choreography too — Havana/Carumba, which opens the second act, is sensational. Travis loves playing with rhythms, and it’s the fast numbers that work best — a couple of the contrasting, treacly ballads would benefit from serious cutting.

As always in a Watermill musical, the ensemble cast must be able to sing, dance and play at least one instrument, sometimes simultaneously. There are absolutely no weak links, but a couple of performances stand out. Laura Pitt-Pulford (left) is terrific as Lola, the hick-town girl who has to become streetwise mighty quick, while the role of Gladys, the golden-hearted Copa girl who’s been there forever, might have been written for Karen Mann.

‘You’ll end up meeting a prince from a country that sounds like a type of cheese,” Gladys tells newly-arrived Lola. Wearing a far-too-tight skimpy costume, and sporting a luxuriant ginger wig, she’s the icing on the cake of a production that lifts a very ordinary, over- extended, musical into a higher — and thoroughly entertaining — league.

Copacabana continues until September 4. Tickets: 01635 46044 or online at www.watermill.org.uk