It is now fairly common to see behemoth Broadway musicals recalibrated as bijou, actor-musician pieces. Even so, you have to admire the chutzpah of the Coliseum for nipping in and becoming the first to claim the UK rights to Kander and Ebb's masterpiece when the all-conquering West End franchise finally closed last year.
For sure you won't see Richard Gere in Oldham; or even Marti Pellow, for that matter. But Kevin Shaw's production succeeds because the piece was originally conceived on an intimate scale. Kander, Ebb and director-choreographer Bob Fosse devised the show as a tribute to the golden age of vaudeville – essentially it's a sequence of sharply observed variety turns for which the Coliseum's music-hall proportions are perfect.
Foxton's art deco set looks the business, though the production also taps into the show's satirical intent. The theme of glamorous, celebrity criminals prepared to kill for publicity owes as much to Brecht as it does to Broadway; and Shaw presents a thrillingly distorted vision of a town in which there's no justice like show-justice.
As with the best actor-musician shows, the potential encumbrance of instruments is wittily avoided. Just at the point in Roxie Hart's sob story when the violin needs to come out, her husband (the wonderfully lugubrious Adam Barlow) deftly produces one. And there's a delightful moment in which the salacious, saxophone-wielding press corps begin phoning copy into their horns.
Adam C Booth, Helen Power and Marianne Benedict deserve to become household names in Oldham at the very least for their performances as Billy, Roxie and Velma respectively. For an example of a vibrant regional theatre punching above its weight, you need look no further: because if this doesn't razzle-dazzle you you ought to see an optician.
• Did you catch this show – or any other recently? Tell us about it using #Iwasthere
