Hard though it is to believe, Fats Waller once wrote a song in Sheffield. He had just played the Empire theatre during a tour of the provinces, and decided to wind down with a stroll through the park.
"At dawn the birds awakened and out of their lively chirpings one short strain stood out," he recalled. "I went back to the hotel, and by 10 o'clock that morning, with the aid of some delicious Amontillado sherry, we had finished Honey Hush."
It conjures a fabulous image of a Yorkshire park-keeper coming to open up and finding a mountainous black American communing with the birds. But it's good to know that the great man's spats were imprinted on these parts, and that there's a little piece of Hallamshire which will always be Harlem.
There's certainly an impressive stamp of authority to this storming jaunt through the Fats Waller songbook, for which the pleasing art deco curves of Peter McKintosh's design transform the Crucible into the Cotton Club in the great age of swing. The brass bray, the piano swells and the cops arrive to break everything up for the interval. It's so authentic, you almost expect the bar staff to serve liquor from a teapot.
There's no narrative to speak of: director Philip Wilson's talented cast simply strut, jive and sway through a seamless compilation of highlights, reminding us that Fats banged out more hits than he had hot dinners - and he clearly enjoyed an awful lot of those. But even without any plot, if this show don't blow your mind then, man, you ain't got no fuses.
· Until January 22. Box office: 0114-249 6000.
