Enthralling, electrifying, energising – this show puts a smile on your boat. Part Strictly Come Dancing, Fawlty Towers, and Kiss Me Kate, Top Hat the Musical is pure pleasure. Based on the 1935 film with music and lyrics by the legendary Irving Berlin, this production has been adapted by Matthew White and Howard Jacques. I have never seen an audience so happy after a show. Everyone went home with a smile on their face, humming a tune and a spring in their step. Energising is the keyword. Top Hat has that magic which brings people back to life, renewed, refreshed and ready to go again. It is a life-affirming show which I thoroughly recommend. With some of the greatest songs in the repertoire, superb dance routines, fine acting and witty dialogue, Top Hat is Top Dog, Top Cat, and impossible to Top That.
The show features some of the most loved musical numbers ever created: ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’, ‘Cheek to Cheek’, ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’ and the show stopper ‘Top Hat, White Tie and Tails’. Seemingly undaunted by following in the footsteps of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the original lead couple, Phillip Attmore and Lindsay Atherton (Lindsay stepping up from 1st cover), are superb. The chemistry between them is palpable, confirming the number “You’re easy to dance with” literally so. The lifts, twists, turns, mirroring manoeuvres and repetitions they conjure create a dreamworld as hypnotic as anything in Swan Lake. Watching them together, it’s easy to see why the musical has swept all before it and become our favourite theatrical genre. If the show does the romantic stuff well, it does the all-singing, all-dancing big numbers brilliantly. That’s clear from the high-energy opening ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ where the ensemble are out in full force. The sight and especially the sound of all those synchronised feet is hypnotically mesmerising. I just wanted it to go on forever. And of course, the choreography reaches its apotheosis in the titular number. The excitement rises as each member of the ensemble joins the chorus line to form a wall of dancers all in perfect alignment. It’s quite simply breathtaking.
Top Hat is not just a juke box musical. It has a storyline, witty dialogue and a rogue’s gallery of engaging, if somewhat stereotypical, characters. The plot is part The Comedy of Errors and part The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, Kiss Me Kate is also a reworking of The Taming. But here it’s the men who are being tamed. There are many puns, double entendres and malapropisms to enjoy. The young lovers, Jerry and Dale, are contracted with the world-weary married couple Horace (James Hume) and Madge Hardwick (Sally Ann Triplett). The latter’s Dorothy Parker-esque putdowns steal scene after scene. James Hume is terrific as the Richard Buckett to Sally Ann Triplett’s Hyancith Buckett. The ten things I hate about you number ‘Outside of That, I Love You’ is a counter intuitive, but nonetheless believable conclusion to their brickbats, bickering and backbiting. James Clyde as Bates, the Wodehousean butler Jeeves, is delightful. But the comic tour de force is undoubtedly Alex Gibson-Giorgio as the Latin Lothario and designer Alberto Beddini, part Malvolio with his yellow stockings cross-gartered and part Mrs Malaprop in his manglings of the English language – “the gardener of Eden” – and partly Manuel in Fawlty Towers, he is a superb comic creation.
Review by John O’Brien
Effervescent, elegant and exhilarating, Top Hat The Musical is a heady romantic cocktail laced with sparklingly witty dialogue, stunning choreography, lavish sets and gorgeous costumes. Irving Berlin’s irresistible score includes some of Hollywood’s greatest songs, the immortal ‘Cheek to Cheek’, ‘Let’s Face The Music and Dance’, ‘Top Hat White Tie and Tails’ and ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’.
CAST
Phillip Attmore – Jerry Travers
Amara Okereke – Dale Tremont
James Hume – Horace Hardwick
Sally Ann Triplett – Madge Hardwick
Alex Gibson-Giorgio – Alberto Beddini
Lindsay Atherton – Ensemble/1st Cover Dale Tremont
Rhiannon Bacchus – Ensemble
Jeremy Batt – Ensemble – 1st Cover Alberto Beddini/2nd Cover Horace Hardwick
Freddie Clements – Ensemble
Pedro Donoso – Ensemble
Bethan Downing – Onstage Swing and Assistant Dance Captain
Autumn Draper – Ensemble
Tilly Ducker – Ensemble/2nd Cover Dale Tremont
Stuart Hickey – Ensemble/1st Cover Horace Hardwick/2nd Cover Bates
Laura Hills – Ensemble/2nd Cover Madge Hardwick
Maddie Harper – Swing
Connor Hughes – Ensemble/1st Cover Bates/2nd Cover Alberto Beddini
George Lyons – Offstage Swing and Dance Captain
David McIntosh – Ensemble
Jordan Oliver – Ensemble/1st Cover Jerry Travers
Emily Ann Potter – Ensemble
Joe Press – Swing
Molly Rees Howe – Ensemble
Kirsty Sparks – Ensemble/1st Cover Madge Hardwick
Toyan Thomas-Browne – Ensemble/2nd Cover Jerry Travers
CREATIVES
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
Based on RKO’s Motion Picture
Adapted for the stage by Matthew White and Howard Jacques
Directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall
Peter McKintosh – Set Designer
Yvonne Milnes and Peter McKintosh – Costume Designers
Tim Mitchell – Lighting Designer
Paul Groothuis – Sound Designer
Carol Lee Meadows – Associate Director and Choreographer
Cameron Wenn – Associate Director
Richard Pitt – Resident Director and Choreographer
Mark Manson for Campbell Young Associates – Hair, Wig and Make-Up Designer
TOP HAT
New Wimbledon Theatre, 14 to 18 October 2025
The UK tour continues to 11 April 2026
Book tickets for Top Hat at King’s Theatre, Glasgow
Date(s): Tue 3 Feb – Sat 7 Feb 2026
