David Bellan is swept up by the sheer glamour and energy of a new Top Hat

It’s a long time since I last saw the legendary movie with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, so I can’t comp-are this show with that perform-ance, but I can tell you that this version of Top Hat is a terrific show in its own right. Music and lyrics are by Irving Berlin, and the show is full of timeless numbers like Puttin’ on the Ritz and Let’s Face the Music and Dance.

Especially in the sec-ond act, this is a farce with huge amounts of tap dancing. There is a simple plot based on mistaken identity. Glamorous Dale Tremont, (Charlotte Gooch), is attracted to Jerry Travers, (Alan Burkitt), a famous American stage star about to appear in his first musical in London. However, she wrongly believes that he is married, and, in despair, gets engaged to her outrageous dressmaker, Alberto Beddini, (Sebastien Torkia). Confusion reigns, and the whole thing is very funny — full of wit and fizz. It all comes right in the end, of course, but the plot, hilarious though much of it is, is just an excuse for some terrific dancing.

Choreographer Bill Deamer won an Olivier Award and Broadway World Award for this show. Alan Burkitt has all the equipment for the singing and dancing role of Jerry; his speed and lightness are amazing, and he is also a very good actor, putting over every nuance of the many moods he is thrown into during his frustrated love-quest. Charlotte Gooch looks every inch the 1930s star — glamorous, unattainable, and, in fact, lonely. She can sing and dance beautifully too, and is also able to be touching between the bursts of comedy.

Hiledegard Bechtler’s wonderful art deco designs perfectly create the mood of privileged luxury in which the story unfolds. The stuffy Thackeray Club in London is just right, and the hotel in Venice, in which romantic couples glide in swooping turns — no tap here — creates just the right atmosphere.

Curiously though, while it’s summer, and we see boys and girls in swimming costumes, the Venetian rooftops appear to be covered in snow!

John Morrel’s costumes for the girls are stunning — how they must love slipping into these sleek, beautifully draped creations. Throughout the piece dance numbers flow one into another amid the seamless set-changes. But it’s Sebastien Torkia who steals the show in a hilarious send-up of a self-obsessed couturier — not camp — just an over-the-top Italian stud. His comic striptease is a hoot.

Top Hat
New Theatre, Oxford
Until Saturday
Tickets: 0844 871 3020 or atgtickets.com/oxford