Chichester's second themed season begins with two works set in Athens, where the gods sport with hapless mortals. But I found Cole Porter's 1950 musical, Out of This World, which gives the season its overall title, infinitely more uplifting than Gale Edwards's revival of Shakespeare's timeless comedy.
Mark Steyn once dubbed Porter's show a "campy romp", but at least it is well-pitched camp. It offers yet another variation on the Amphitryon theme, in which Jupiter descends in human shape to seduce a mortal, Here, in Greg MacKellan's witty revision of the original book, the woman in question is a Hollywood goddess. The new version adds its own layer of loucheness by making Apollo a predatory cruiser and by hinting at a lesbian relationship between a syndicated gossip writer and Juno. The latter asks her newfound friend whether her column is Doric or Corinthian before nocturnally offering to take her to the top of Mount Olympus.
The chief attraction of the show, getting its British professional premiere, is its treasure trove of little-known Porter numbers. They may not be on the level of Anything Goes, where the songs are a perfect expression of the period. But from Jupiter's opening number, which announces that "my much-admired machinery/ is looking for a change of scenery", they ripple with double-entendres. Cherry Pies and I Sleep Easier Now demonstrate, respectively, Porter's matchless list-technique and gift for sexual disillusion.
Even if the show ends in a limp endorsement of marital fidelity, Martin Duncan's boisterous production relishes what Byron called the "filthy loves of gods and goddesses". And there is fine work from Anne Reid as a jaundiced Mae West-like Juno, Fiona Dunn as the fallen Hollywood idol and Richard Dempsey as a fleet Mercury who once opened Pandora's box. Richard Balcombe's musical direction does justice to a rich and well-stacked Porter score.
For all its campiness, the show makes you feel that humans are transformed by contact with the immortals - a sensation signally missing from the mundane revival of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the only real magic lies in the luminosity of the fairies' fingertips (all credit to the production's "magic advisor", Tom Silburn). Even the staging is poor: the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude is inexplicably set on a high balcony, remote from the audience.
My biggest complaint about the production, however, is that it treats Shakespeare's language as a distraction rather than the essence of the play. Speeches are underscored by music, accompanied by visual acrobatics or even totally subverted, as when John Marquez's unforgivable Puck pulls funny faces while Jeffery Kissoon's fine-spoken Oberon is telling us that he knows a bank where the wild thyme blows. If I were Kissoon, I'd tell him to Puck off.
Revealingly, the best performance comes from Barry McCarthy, whose almost wordless Starveling is a mountain of dyspeptic grumpiness. Daisy Haggard, meanwhile, invests Helena with a nice wounded bafflement. But the crucial sense of transfiguration is absent and, far from being out of this world, the production remains all too visibly earthbound.
· In rep until September 25. Box office: 01243 781312.
