It's been a year's wait for east London hit The Big Life to make it into the West End. But, as this musical spin on Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost makes clear, there's no pleasure so sweet as a deferred pleasure. In dramatising the experiences of the Windrush generation of West Indian immigrants to the UK, it manages to be infectiously energetic and big-hearted, while never glossing over the hardship these visitors faced.
Clint Dyer's production is instantly winning, from the moment Jason Pennycooke's Admiral steps on to the Windrush's deck and, heart in mouth, spies "Inglan" on the horizon. Determined to succeed in the mother country, four young men agree to abjure women and booze for three years. It's remarkable how closely Paul Sirett's book follows Love's Labour's Lost thereafter, and how an immigrant context enriches Shakespeare's drama of postponed satisfaction and the irrepressibility of young love.
Paul Joseph's ska-styled tunes, played by an on-stage band in angels' wings, are irrepressible too - and well matched by Pennycooke's characterful choreography. There's a corking soca stomp-along called Gettin' Hot that sees a tap-dancing Eros descend from his Piccadilly Circus plinth. The four celibates exult in one another's failure with the hilariously triumphalist You Do It!, whose punning lyrics are seized upon with relish by the performers, particularly Victor Romero-Evans' sibilant Ferdy. WOMAN is one of several comically steamy soul numbers in a show whose sexiness is refreshingly robust.
A charismatic cast commit to the story is if their own, and not just their characters' lives depended upon it. There may be one or two over-emphatic performances. There are also some of the funniest turns currently on the London stage, particularly from Tameka Empson as Mrs Aphrodite, a caustic Jamaican chorus dispensing tart remarks from the royal box. Sardonic, sassy and vivacious, here's hoping that, like the immigrants to whose fortitude it pays such glorious tribute, The Big Life has found a lasting London home.
· Until November 5. Box office: 020-7494 5070.
