Has this Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical about killers of US presidents dated? After all, we now inhabit the age of communal cells rather than lone gunmen. But what keeps this show very much alive, as Nikolai Foster's revival proves, is its dual attack on America's psychotic celebrity cult and institutionalised success worship.
Taking nine actual or would-be assassins, Weidman's kaleidoscopic book highlights how John Wilkes Booth claims to avenge the South, Charles Guiteau to preserve the Union, and John Hinckley to impress Jodie Foster. Though motives vary, the nine have qualities in common: a desire for recognition, and a belief their failure can be exorcised by destroying the ultimate power symbol - suggesting something defective in a system that both sanctifies the pursuit of happiness and invests so much authority in one individual.
But the show's real irony is that it celebrates musically the America it attacks politically. Sondheim's score belies the idiotic accusation that he is no tunesmith by amounting to a dazzling anthology of national styles. We get folk ballads, Sousaesque marches, Copland-style anthems, and, in one extreme case, a cakewalk. The high point for me remains the moment when Guiteau (who killed President Garfield in 1881) dances his way to the scaffold jauntily singing "I am going to the Lordy" as if at a revivalist meeting.
Given Sondheim's rare ability to counterpoint murder and melody, I wish this production were less sombre: Peter McKintosh's set resembles a stockade more than a fairground, and Guy Hoare's lighting errs on the sepulchral.
But Foster's production brings out the black comedy of one of Ford's potential female assassins trying to cope with a brattish child, and there are some sharply-defined performances. Gerard Murphy is unforgettable as Samuel Byck (who, prophetically, planned to crash a plane onto Nixon's White House). Ian Bartholomew's Guiteau suggests a deranged vaudevillian. And, while Billy Carter brings out the social rage of McKinley's killer, Matt Rawle's excellently-sung Balladeer provides a permanently mocking commentary.
Far from being dated, this timely revival also reminds us of the assassin's delusion: of the nine, only Booth and Oswald achieved lasting notoriety.
· Until April 1. Box office: 0114 249 6000
