Guys And Dolls – Leeds Grand

GUYS AND Dolls is regarded as a classic Broadway musical and with Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat and Luck Be A Lady boasts some of the best songs in musical theatre.

But like many of those classics, when you look back at it through our modern eyes there’s not really that much to the show.

The plot is wafer thin, the characters aren’t quite three-dimensional and you’ll forget most of the songs a couple of minutes after they’ve been sung.

Yet, there’s cracking entertainment to be had if the production team give it everything they’ve got and the audience let their eyes be rose-tinted rather than modern.

The producers and performers of this latest West End version are certainly having a great time and the enthusiasm rolls over the audience in waves.

The setting is 1920s New York, portrayed brilliantly with a massive semi-circle of neon signs advertising products of the time.

The leading quartet are terrific: debonair gambler Sky Masterson and Salvation Army girl Sarah Brown reluctantly falling in love after he woos her for a bet, and Nathan Detroit trying to avoid marriage to fiancé Miss Adelaide while struggling to find a venue for his dice game.

They and the chorus treat almost every song as a showstopper, even if some don’t warrant the accolade, and this helps make some memorable moments during a bubbly whole.

I particularly enjoyed the love songs that brought the first act to a close, American Songbook standards have been done to death elsewhere, but here given a fresh twist that lends credibility and emotional punch to Sky and Sarah’s love story.

Guys And Dolls is certainly dated in places, but still lots of fun.

• Tonight and tomorrow 7.30pm, Saturday 2.30pm. Visit leedsgrandtheatre.com or call 0844 8482700.

David Knights