Betty Blue Eyes

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

2/5 

IF THE success of a musical rested on the ability of its refrain to lodge in the audience’s head then Betty Blue Eyes would be huge.

As it is George Stiles and Anthony Drewe’s original production, based on Alan Bennett’s screenplay for A Private Function, only lasted six months in the West End. Daniel Buckroyd’s revival has plenty of perky choreography and swing songs but it still lacks conviction.

Set in post-WWII austerity Britain, the farce pokes fun at small-town politics and social snobbery as dignitaries prepare for an exclusive banquet to mark Princess Elizabeth’s impending wedding. 

It revels in the ordinary, from Sara Perks’s generic northern townscape set design through to the protagonist being a browbeaten chiropodist (Gilbert Chilvers, played by a Bennett-esque Haydn Oakley) and its bad guy being an officious government meat inspector (Tobias Beer).

With its central plot to feast local bigwigs on an unlicensed, ration defying pig — a delightful puppet handled by Lauren Logan — and songs that ode ingrown toenails and pork roasts, there’s plenty to love about the musical on paper. 

But it’s beset by poor-quality sound and lighting throughout the first act. The satire that marked out Bennett’s original script has also been blunted into a feel-good piece that’s too insubstantial to be lent weight by strong acting and a fine four-piece live band.

Runs until July 5. Box office: (0113) 213-770.

Susan Darlington