Top Hat

Adapted by Matthew White and Howard Jacques; music and lyrics by Irving Berlin

Chichester Festival Theatre production

Opera House, Manchester

November 25-29, 2025; 2hrs 30mins

(also at Sheffield Lyceum, January 20-24, 2026; Lowry Salford, March 31-April 4)

Phillip Attmore as Jerry Travers and Amara Okereke as Dale Tremont in Top Hat. All pics: Johan Persson

A coup de foudre ("love at first sight") has been a classic device in the theatre since Shakespeare. It is often used in good farce, and Top Hat, based on the 1930s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, is very good farce indeed.

In fact its devilishly difficult to review, as so much of it works so beautifully. Great songs? Check. Great dancing? Check. Good acting? Check. So lets turn to that old standby, the staging...

In fact the staging is also done well. Simple, but effective. One minute the audience is in New York, the next in London, then finally in Venice. You want a top notch hotel? Easy: a bridal suite set in the 1930s. A turn of the revolve and it's in place. Good farce needs speed, and the set ensures we have no time to catch our breath. One round of applause and it’s on to the next capital.

Philip Attmore, as leading man Jerry, was born to be hit by a coup de foudre. From his initial entrance as a dancer, singer and actor we were completely in the palm of his graceful hands. Amara Okereke is the right

person to smite him. Small of physique but possessing a voice and presence to stand up for herself, she

almost matches Attmore's star quality.

As it’s a farce, you need good comic actors to support the leads, and in James Hume, Sally Ann Triplett , James Clyde and Alex Gibson-Giorgio, we have a great supporting ensemble. Sally Ann does a perfect impersonation of Mae West – mind you, she has most of the funny lines, but it’s the way she tells 'em... James Clyde shows his classical training as Bates the gentleman’s gentleman; a way PG Wodehouse would have been proud to copy for Jeeves.

In the end, what an audience recalls is the quality of the singing and dancing on show. In this case, the company can be proud of the whole-hearted, polished fun it creates from first to last.

As always, the show-stopper is the title song, presented here with cracking perfection. And the singing enables those who have watched the 1935 original movie to hum quietly along.

A small caveat, though: the second half is a trifle too long and could benefit from the attention of choreographer and director Kathleen Marshall. But that’s one of the problems of reviewing shows: we look for the small flaws no one else will really notice or care about - not least when they having such a good time. Many in the audience will probably experience coup de foudre for the show itself...

More info and tickets here