Singin’ in the Rain: fun Christmas show is ‘pure bottled sunshine’

There is something of a “modern obsession with cynically adapting films for the theatre”, said Holly Williams in The Times. But when it comes to the Royal Exchange’s “gloriously cheering” new Christmas show, all is forgiven – and then some.

“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) is a “simply perfect film, and with all its singin’ and dancin’ and showbiz glitz”, it’s a perfect fit for the stage. Raz Shaw directs with “visual panache and knowing wit”, and if the satire is broad, it’s also enormous fun. The cast is top notch: when they dance or sing, you “swoon with them”. And “while I’m a sucker for any tap-dancing sequence, there is something particularly thrilling about seeing Alistair David’s tightly drilled yet playful choreography performed in the round” at this circular venue. Forget the rain: this production is “pure bottled sunshine”.

“From the moment the band strikes up that unmistakable MGM shimmer, the production glides confidently between homage and reinvention,” said Amanda Dunlop on WhatsOnStage. For this much-loved tale – about the shift in Tinseltown from the silent movies to the talkies in the 1920s, and its impact on two established stars – the Exchange has been transformed into a “snow globe of tap shoes, twinkling lights and old-Hollywood glitz”.

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In the Gene Kelly role, Louis Gaunt offers a “winning mix of matinee-idol swagger and self-mocking charm” in a performance “that would bring a Broadway audience to their feet”. And Danny Collins has “quicksilver energy” and “perfect comedic delivery” as his best friend, Cosmo Brown.

The women are equally fabulous, said Mark Brown in The Telegraph. Laura Baldwin is a “comic delight” as Lina Lamont, the egotistical silent movie star whose grating speaking voice (“Can’t a goil get a woid in edgeways?”) is threatening to kill her career, and Carly Mercedes Dyer shines as the aspiring actress who is hired to record over it secretly.

With relatively little in the way of set, this show is carried along by its terrific cast and its “high-energy” choreography, said Catherine Love in The Guardian. In a time of incessant “doom-scrolling”, this “Singin’ in the Rain” feels both “necessary and infectious. By the puddle-stomping finale, resistance is futile.”

Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. Until 25 January