TO say that the Arnaud's biggest musical production to date, Beautiful and Damned, is massive is an understatement.
With an all-singing, all-dancing cast of 22 and a live orchestra, it's a wonder the stage can take the strain. But take the strain it does in this vibrant tale of the doomed love story of the king and queen of the jazz age, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
This is an old-fashioned musical in the best sense, packed with melody and great hoofing. Over-packed, undoubtedly, and running on its second night at almost three hours, it needs more judicious pruning.
Given the huge scope of the subject, encompassing not only the emergence of one of the USA's greatest writers, but also the birth of the hedonistic jazz age, the show attempts too much.
A narrower focus would be easier on the ferociously energetic cast and audience alike. With music and lyrics by hitmakers Les Reed and Roger Cook, there are big ballads a-plenty from the plaintive Who In The World Am I to the haunting, Beautiful Magnolia (which has an air of Wind Beneath Your Wings about it).
Given time, there are some future classics in this score but it's not all hearts and flowers. There are some pithy lines from the pen of Kit Hesketh Harvey, and terriffic jazz numbers in which the whole company whips up a storm.
Patti Boulaye, all a-glitter in stunning black, white, and silver, and the dapper Domenick Allen as the clarinet-wielding Jozan, are the raunchy narrators of this tale of talent, love, and liquor in magnificent excess.
Patti gets her big moment, à la Josephine Baker in the Riviera cabaret scene, complete with mermaids and gorillas - no, don't ask - but this set piece is perhaps an indulgence. For glitter and colour, it would be hard to match this production with its elegant 20s finery and panels of Art Deco fronds which serve as the backdrop for the wide-ranging setting.
From Alabama to the Riviera, from an ocean liner to the madhouse, the routines are breathless, and joy of joys, the lyrics are intelligible.
It may not always have the inventiveness of Sondheim but it is easy on the ear. But, oh dear, there just had to be a number, called Tender is the Night.
Helen Anker is Zelda, the Miss Alabama brought low by booze and inherited mental instability, and John Barrowman is the epitome of the leading man as the troubled Scott.
Their duets are emotional and dramatic, no doubt bringing a tear to the eye of the most susceptible.
There's no faulting the singing skills of this cast and there are some vastly entertaining performances from the ensemble. David Burt, whose hilarious ad lib overcame the shock of an exploding lightbulb, runs the gamut from stuffy southern judge to sozzled Ernest Hemingway in engaging style.
Jo Gibb is vivacity on legs as Hell Let Loose, and primness itself as Zelda's sister, Rosalind.
For amusing primness, Guildford's own Jane Lucas has the disapproving English Nanny down to a T as well as an extraordinary Gertrude Stein.
The sweet-faced Sarah Lark gives Scottie, the glittering couple's unfortunate daughter, a girlish charm while avoiding the abyss of over-sentimentality.
The dancers are effervescent, choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood, and the uptempo jazz numbers give the audience the feeling of being at a wonderful, if dimly recalled, party.
Oddly, despite the destructive wrangling over Zelda's diaries, which threatened to cramp Scott's literary style, there's very little about the novels which made Fitzgerald such a force in American literature.
Writer struggles, succeeds, spends, and struggles again about sums it up. That Zelda was his inspiration is understood; just why is harder to explain.
However, this is a musical not high drama, although there are some gritty and foul-mouthed scenes in the second act which oddly take you by surprise.
Given the wider stage of a West End theatre, this show will be even more impressive than in the somewhat crowded confines of the Arnaud.
It is a question of feeling the quality and never minding the width at present.
Take the shears to the frills and this show should run and run.
Sandy Baker
• Beautiful and Damned runs at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, until, Saturday, June 28.