Singin' in the Rain
- Robert Beale
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
Betty Comden and Adolph Green; Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed
Royal Exchange Theatre Company
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
November 29, 2025-January 25, 2026: 2 hrs 55 mins
You could hardly hope for a better feelgood show to lift the spirits in dark days than the energy-filled, fun-packed romantic gem that is Singin in the Rain.Â
It’s a classic now, and the more recent West End and touring adaptation for the theatre became just as memorable (if for nothing else than the fact that people in the front few rows then were issued with rainwear as the cast kicked what seemed like gallons of water into the stalls in the legendary eponymous number).
There are no raincoats for the audience in this production (though those closest to the performers get a light sprinkling), but it’s a huge success, not least because of the originality and skill involved in adapting it for full in-the-round staging. Warner Brothers Theater Ventures Inc may have been as particular as ever in insisting that much of the script, music and Gene Kelly’s choreography follow the original, but the Exchange has managed to get permission to revamp the Broadway Ballet, near the top of the second Act, completely. That is one of the high-spots of the show, and choreographer Alistair David deserves congratulation for it, as much as for his circularisations of the more familiar moves. The 10-strong ensemble and principals, hoofing it for all they’re worth on the tiny centre stage, are a sight to behold.
There are a few aspects of Raz Shaw’s direction that remind one how much skill the scenario demands if it is to be presented in the round: when we see Dora the gossip columnist and others talking into a fixed column microphone, they have to circle around it themselves to avoid addressing just one section of the auditorium; when silent film sequences are shown they have to be on two separate curved screens that descend from the heavens and then retract; and when Kathy sings You are my lucky star, ostensibly from behind a curtain, it’s an invisible one with the effect created purely by lighting (Jack Knowles).
But the very scale of the challenge, and the sheer physical demand of reproducing the hoofing in one number after another (remember, in the film some of the sequences took days to get right), has an audience completely on the side of the performers and elated to see how brilliantly they do it. Credit here to the lively band under the musical direction of Matthew Malone, and to Richard Kent for lavish costumes and neat set design.
I’m sure I saw sweat flying from Louis Gaunt (who plays Don Lockwood) at one point almost as tangibly as the rain that fell from the sprinklers, and wardrobe will have had to mend a seam on his tuxedo after he threw himself around in it with such abandon, but he is a masterful interpreter of Gene Kelly’s role, as actor and singer as well as dancer.Â
Danny Collins brings extraordinary chutzpah, and some very neat footwork, to Cosmo Brown (Lockwood’s pal and fellow performer) which won some of the biggest applause of the night. And Laura Baldwin managed to win their sympathy too, with a virtuosic performance of the awful, screeching Lina Lamont; you just had to feel sorry for her.Â
Carly Mercedes Dyer is wonderful as the pure, modest and talented Kathy Selden, and she sings all her own songs (unlike Debbie Reynolds in the film).
There are strong impressions from Julius D’Silva as RF Simpson, the studio boss, and Carl Sanderson as director Roscoe Dexter, but the variety of other roles taken by ensemble members, including those who have solo numbers, are all amazing. It’s a show full of numbers that have become standards – Make ‘em laugh, You were meant for me, Moses supposes, Good morning among them – and each one is a sparkler (including the Moses song, done with the help of some very robust chairs).
I notice the original setting of the film is defined as taking place in 1925, and since anniversaries are in the air for the Royal Exchange as it celebrates its 50th, this is an excellent way to mark it. And they’re already taking bookings for next year’s Christmas show: Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.
More info and tickets here
