The National Health Service is Europe's largest employer, with 1.3m workers. If only a small proportion of them tried to to see this show, it would be able to run without a break in Plymouth for years. And why not? Nick Stimson and Jimmy Jewell's musical is a perky, pesky word-of-mouth hit, an old-fashioned revue-style entertainment. It both pokes fun at and celebrates a British institution that, despite its failings, is held in huge affection: we will all use it at some point in our journey from the cradle to the grave.
The show is short on biting satire, although Patricia Hewitt's claim that the NHS has just enjoyed its "best year ever" is gleefully shown up as the empty boast of a desperate politician. There are also times when the constant stream of statistics feels like information overload or as if you're being crammed for a nasty exam in health economics.
But the show sidesteps its own limitations and, by highlighting the experiences of three patients - an OAP needing a hip replacement, a pregnant young woman with leukaemia and a middle-aged man requiring bypass surgery - develops a story of real emotional warmth that offers up a tour through the NHS, showing it at its best and worst. One of the funniest scenes sees a clutch of managers badgering patients into filling out forms to evaluate services they are still waiting to receive.
This is a small show, but it has plenty of big musical numbers, a mass of larky, witty lyrics and a cast with some seriously good voices. It's only a quick fix, but you leave the theatre feeling remarkably cheery about a 58-year-old institution that may need more than the ministrations of a doctor to save it.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 01752 267222.
