As Giles Woodforde discovers, this musical remake is a hit

Betty Blue Eyes — the name suggests a 1940s forces sweetheart, a singer with a famous dance band perhaps. But Betty is in fact a pig being fattened up for consumption at a corporate feast.

Betty Blue Eyes, the eponymous musical, is based on Alan Bennett’s 1984 film A Private Function, with score and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, who also wrote several numbers for the stage version of Mary Poppins. It’s set in a small Northern town in 1947, and rationing is still a part of life. A group of local businessmen plan a party to celebrate the forthcoming royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip, and they decide to illegally raise Betty Blue Eyes for the occasion.

But Joyce, the grasping wife of hen-pecked chiropodist Gilbert Chilvers, has her own plans for the porker. “He who hesitates is condemned to make house calls on a bicycle,” snaps Joyce. A social climber, she thinks Gilbert should raise his profile by taking a vacant shop. If the spot is obtained, she announces, “after supper sexual intercourse will be in order”. But planning permission must be obtained from the town council leader (a splendid cameo from Kit Benjamin), whose hand twitches behind his back, as if ready to receive every passing bribe. Amy Booth-Steel and Haydn Oakley feelingly portray the ups and downs of Joyce and Gilbert’s relationship — incidentally bespectacled Gilbert bears a strong resemblance to Alan Bennett, co-author of the original story. There are key performances also from Tobias Beer, who has a ball as a pompous food inspector, and Lauren Logan, the puppeteer who seems to give Betty a smile and a twinkle in the eye.

An uncharacteristic flop for Cameron Mackintosh on its 2011 West End debut, Betty Blue Eyes has risen phoenix-like in this new, and by all accounts much simpler, production. There is still a large cast who deliver Stiles and Drewe’s material with much sparkle and great precision — there are excellent numbers in the score. Backed by a set design (Sara Perks) expertly reflecting the austerity-driven 1940s atmosphere, director Daniel Buckroyd delivers a show that feels like an Ealing Comedy as events speed towards their farcical conclusion. Sophisticated this ain’t, heartwarming entertainment it certainly is.

Betty Blue Eyes
Oxford Playhouse
Until Saturday
Call 01865 305305 or visit oxfordplayhouse.com