THE FULL MONTY is a likeable enough romp

So what else do you do when you're down on your luck, don't have a job, debts are mounting and your relationship is crashing – or crashed? You take your clothes off in public of course ... to music ... and hopefully with some style. That's the divertingly dopey premise behind late 90s musical THE FULL MONTY with a bunch of misfit males trying to make hero from zero after being laid-off from a Sheffield steelworks.

The show explores male insecurities when stripped – pun intended – of their provider role, along with the nature of loving relationships. It may be a bit of a mixed bag, but it's likeable and enjoyable enough. The performers invest their characters with enough depth, warmth and well-timed humour to make allowances for the production's anomalies. Among these are the inconsistent and varying English accents, which seem to come from across the north, and an apparent mash-up of the show's English and American versions.

Led by Sam Gordon, as Jerry, the male ensemble of Nick Ross (Dave), Ben Pryor (Harold), Karl Stewart (Horse), Hayden Giles (Malcolm) and Hunter Higginson (Ethan) deliver in a believable rough-and-ready style that admirably suits the show. There are no gym-sculpted buff bods or crisp concert chamber coloratura here.

Among the highpoints is Jessie Feyen's delightfully ditsy performance as Vicki performing Life With Harold with Pryor, and in duet with Katie Monaghan's Georgie in the reprise of You Rule My World.

Stewart makes the most of Big Black Man, Giles and Higginson are affecting in You Walk With Me and Hannah Mills has her moments as the elderly irascible piano-pumping show-biz broad who appears out of nowhere to accompany the left-footed troupe. Young Isaac Gregory deserves acknowledgement for the winsome way he played Nathan, Jerry's primary-aged son.

Choreographer Blair Macbeth provides the cast with some nifty moves and well-paced routines.

Engaging as it may be, tighter dialogue cues and slicker scene changes would help speed up the first half in particular.

(Richard Mays)