This was wonderful. I shot down to London on Monday for a meeting on Tuesday morning and managed, courtesy of aunt, to squish it in too. 

I love that director Marianne Elliott directed a big sprawling show about a small wooden horse and then directed this tidy and neatly knit musical about a thirty-something singleton.

It's caused some debate in the navel-gazing world of theatre reviewers as Elliott has switched the gender of the protagonist in Sondheim's 1970s musical from a residually single man to a 35 year old single woman. Given the biology involved, some have argued that this isn't really a like for like swap.As a one-time residually single 35 year old, I thought it was ace. The grim relentless horror of being surrounded by couples who can't envisage that you would want to be in anything other than a couple of your own is beautifully captured. 

And the gender switching (she's also made one of the formerly heterosexual couples, gay, with fun and lovely results), for me, only adds a sharp poignancy. Particularly as society - in this land, at least, contiues to see a 35 year old single woman as desperate where a man is desirable.

The summation of the perfection - aside from Rosalie Craig's excellent performance (and what do you know, I also saw her in The Ferryman), a stunningly beautiful set (see pics on the show website) and some totally gorgeous arrangements of Sondheim's lovely score, was a Barbers (apostrophe?) Shop rearrangement of a cracking Sondheim song, You Could Drive A Person Crazy. Just tickety booly lovely.

Time Out write very well about it here.  And much as Michael Billington's opening gambit makes me squirm for its pithiness, so does he (here).

I commend it to you.