Oscar Hammerstein believed that The King and I represented his and Richard Rodgers's best work: "It has more wisdom and heart than any other musical play by anybody; it will remain 'modern' long after any of our other plays."
Well, he was half right. The King and I has endured to the extent that this production is billed as the 50th anniversary tour (though that particular landmark was passed four years ago). But the chief pleasure of Stephen Rayne's staging is that it is so spectacularly, unashamedly old-fashioned.
You can poke about for modern parallels if you must. A muddle-headed, increasingly out-of-touch royal being taken in hand by an opinionated woman - a comment on the imminent remarriage of the Prince of Wales, perhaps? Or maybe it's an allegory for the commercial exploitation of Thailand. Though whereas the king of Siam sends for a mail-order companion from England, these days it's the other way round.
But if we can put notions of modernity aside, there is a certain pleasurable comfort to be gained from entering a theatre and being reassured that nothing has altered since 1951. Not even the choreography: the show comes with one of those cumbersome billing arrangements featuring bizarre credits such as "Jerome Robbins choreography by Nikki Woollaston".
There are no nasty surprises about the characterisation, either. Yul Brynner never escaped the straitjacket of playing the king, so there's little chance of Kevin Gray escaping the confines of playing Yul Brynner. Elizabeth Renihan's sumptuous Anna, meanwhile, provides the perfect foil, a fondant fancy with a piquant snap of schoolmarmish pique.
Richard Rodgers's ravishingly inventive score bustles along beautifully. The King and I remains fresh because it's just one damn hit after another: Whistle a Happy Tune, Getting to Know You, Something Wonderful, Shall We Dance - as the king would say, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
· At New Theatre, Oxford, from tonight until Saturday. Box office: 0870 606 3500. Then touring.
