Review: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, Leeds Playhouse

Almost exactly a year ago, when none of us knew when theatre would return, I wrote of five shows I wanted to see the moment curtains rose again. Top of the list was Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music - and I wasn't wrong!

Leeds Playhouse's co-production with Opera North is a delight beyond even my expectations, a magical trip into the long Swedish evenings as they morph into mornings, a world in which nothing is centred, realities can slip and slide, as 3am looks much like 3pm and tomorrow looks much like yesterday without there ever having been a today in between.

Time folds back and stretches forward for the ex-lovers, the lovers and would-be lovers in Hugh Wheeler's beautifully judged book, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's movie, Smiles of a Summer Night. There's A Midsummer Night's Dream vibe in play too, but with no need for puckish fairy interventions, events driven by the vanities, conceits and foolishness that provoke the foibles of us imperfect creatures.

Fredrik is tiring of his teenage bride, Anne, and she's much happier teasing his uptight religious son, Henrik, than bedding her husband. When Fredrik meets fading actress and old flame, Desiree (as bright as Anne is dim), they set in motion a romantic reconfiguration that draws in her lover, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, his frivolous wife, Charlotte, and even Petra, the maid - but more of her later. It's all observed by the rheumy eye of Madame Armfeldt, Desiree's mother, who knows plenty about such trysts, especially what can be gained as well as lost, and Fredrika, Desiree's daughter, who is learning fast.

Set in the mid-20th century, it looks so, so gorgeous, with Oxford bags for the men and cocktail dresses for the women and an interval re-dressing of the set which is almost worth the ticket price alone. And, if that's not, The Orchestra of Opera North certainly is, playing at the back of the large auditorium, giving full value to the luscious melodies and that soothing, but ever so slightly malevolent, triple time signature that leads our ill-starred couples on their merry waltz. I'm not sure that I've ever heard a musical's score played with such assurance nor more sympathetically balanced with the singing - super work from the conductor, James Holmes, and his musicians.

Though often performed by opera companies, the show has fewer numbers than many musicals, so acting as well as singing is required. Stephanie Corley captures exactly the right level of flirtatious devil-may-care attitude that slowly reveals the degree to which Desiree is not having as much flighty fun as meets the eye. This proves crucial in setting up the iconic, regret-laden "Send In The Clowns".

She gets strong support from Quirijn de Lang as Fredrik, a little too passive at times, but a fine singer with pin-sharp comic timing, and the imperious Dame Josephine Barstow, armed with the cynicism of age and the sharp tongue of a mother who can't quite condemn Desiree's lifestyle, only its relative lack of material reward.

As intended, Corinne Cowling and Laurence Kilsby irritate us to distraction as the stepmother and stepson who - well, everyone knows what's going to happen, but it's still fun seeing it play out. And, though she kept me waiting for nearly three hours, Amy J Payne absolutely nailed one of my favourite songs in the whole of musical theatre, Petra's thrilling, swaggering paean to promiscuous pleasures (with its brutal warnings against complacency) "The Miller's Son".

A Little Night Music is 48 years old now, but still younger than most in its matinee audience - not that it matters. This production is as fresh as the berries that grow everywhere during the long still Swedish summer days - and every bit as delightful.

A Little Night Music is at Leeds Playhouse until 17 July.

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