At the Hayes Theatre in Kings Cross - A terrific production of HOLIDAY INN (Irving Berlin, Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge)

The leads - Nigel Huckle,  Emma Feliciano, Mary McCorry (I'm presuming), 

Should I be just a bit ashamed to admit I’ve never seen Holiday Inn. It was made at Paramount  in 1942 by Mark Sandrich but the auteur was Irving Berlin who wrote the words and music.

Now I’ve just come at the film after seeing a wildly enthusiastic show on the tiny performing space of the Hayes Theatre up in Kings Cross where a five piece band sat around the back of the stage and ten young actors, singers and dancers knocked out their own version directed, for the first time, by choreographer Sally Dashwood. The new libretto is by Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge, with the same music and lyrics by Irving Berlin from this movie and others. The musical opened on Broadway in 2016 and I am assuming this is the first time it has been performed out here, in Sydney at least. 

It was fabulous and the talent on display quite remarkable. Most striking though were two features – the rapid fire costume changes of all ten cast members and the precision of the production. Entrances and exits were timed like a perfect version of Feydeau. The choreography, a huge amount of it involving large swathes of the cast working in some tiny spaces, was not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely brilliant.

It runs at the Hayes Theatre till December 22. Treat yourself to a great night out then find a copy of the movie somewhere, probably OK.ru if you are desperate, and watch Bing Crosby fighting off Fred Astaire for attention. That’s worth a look too even if just to note how smart Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge have been in getting this old show back front and centre.