Context is everything. On a hot summer night in Chichester, this composite Gerswhin musical seemed utterly beguiling. On a wet, wintry night off Piccadilly Circus it comes across simply as charming. The show, in all essentials, is the same: what has altered, along with the stage space, is the ambience.
On a second viewing one also becomes more conscious of the synthetic nature of the show's origins. In 1983 the Broadway team of Peter Stone and Timothy S Mayer took hold of the 1927 Funny Face, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, gave it a brand new book, and added numbers from the Gershwin catalogue.
It is a technique that worked perfectly well in Girl Crazy and so it does here, up to a point. But since the show is all about a naive young aviator who sacrifices fame for his love of a cross-channel swimmer, it seems odd to twice interpolate Strike Up The Band - which comes from a Gershwin political satire. Even daffy escapism requires a certain internal logic.
Cavils aside, many of the show's virtues remain intact. The outstanding feature of Loveday Ingram's production is still Craig Revel Horwood's choreography, which combines sexiness and delicacy.
S'Wonderful is turned into a spectacular water-ballet with Janie Dee's scrumptious swimmer and Timothy Flavin's agile aviator sliding, gliding and aquatically tapping before ending up inextricably intertwined.
Earlier they saunter into a Central Park love duet, and, in the title number, Richard Lloyd King as the hero's magical style guru allows his tapping toes to do the talking while his trunk remains effortlessly still.
Ingram's direction also lends the parodically innocent plot an inherent sensuality. Dee's blackmailed swimmer, like Doris Day with oomph, and Flavin's naive aviator can scarcely keep their hands off each other.
And, since Chichester, the show has invaluably acquired Jenny Galloway as a secret agent masquerading as the hero's rude mechanic: she brings more mischief to the part so that, when in Funny Face she has Hilton McRae's spy in handcuffs, you feel it is largely a sexual ploy.
The show does not boast the extravagant production values of many West End musicals. But the songs are delightful, the choreography first rate, and it leaves us with a comfortable glow.
· Until August 3. Box office: 020-7369 1734.
