Song and Dance: Richard Mays

It takes more than talent and a great voice to pull off a full-length sing-through one-woman musical show. Daring, composure, confidence and teamwork are required in equal measure. This production scores on all counts.

Calling Song & Dance a one-woman show is technically a misnomer, as performer Amy Hunt has help from a troupe of dancers and Bradford Meurk's mute accompaniment as "the Man" - or perhaps, "the Men".

The show chronicles the romantic misadventures of an English girl who relocates across the Atlantic. Set in the 80s, "the Girl" performs some 25 numbers, several in the form of letters to her mother back in Britain. The songs are full of reflection about a new way of life, but tinged with irony, naivete, hope, emotional confusion and sadness as things just don't work out with "the Men" either in New York, or in California.

Silently present, "the Man" is a non-speaking portrait of emotional distance and infidelity.

Originally in two acts, Tell Me on a Sunday, with the second, Variations performed by dancers to Paganini's A Minor Caprice No. 24 (cellist Julian Lloyd Webber had a classick/rock fusion hit in 1977 with Variations), this production integrates the dance with the songs, including a beautifully executed ensemble tap routine. Dancers also stand in as the "other women".

On a sparse multi-level set, Hunt's unifying, high intensivity vocal performance is outstanding. She holds interest and focus while revealing loneliness, vulnerability and hurt as well as the character's essential but often misplaced optimism.