Stunning costumes, check. Brilliant choreography, check. Beautiful people, check. Wonderful music, check. All the glamour of the Thirties, check. Entrancing music, check. Creative scenery, check. Laughter, check.

Hang on a minute, this is supposed to be a story about love - boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl gets him mixed up with somebody else, and eventually everything is sorted out - not a comedy.

Yet comedy is essential in this lavish production of music and dance based on the original film starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It tells the story of Broadway sensation Jerry Travers, who dances his way across Europe to find the girl he meets in a hotel.

Local lad Alan Burkitt (as the debonair Jerry Travers) sings and dances like a dream. It is really something to see those flashing feet tapping across the stage. I particularly liked his attention to detail – the little quirk of the lip and the nonchalant placing of the hand in the pocket. It was almost like Fred was back on stage.

Charlotte Gooch as Dale Tremont was sensational. Not only can she dance, but sings brilliantly. How she manages such intricate dance moves and high-kicking in those chic, swirling evening gowns without tripping never ceased to amaze me. I wonder how long it takes to collect up all the feathers from the dress after the Cheek to Cheek routine?

You can’t help humming and singing along to Irving Berlin’s memorable numbers Puttin’ on the Ritz; Top Hat, Let’s Face the Music and White Tie and Tails.

Yet for all the lavish costumes, yes the silk top hats of course, the dance, and the minutiae of the detail, what stuck out most to me was the fun of the show.

From the little airplane that “flies” across the sky in the Grand Canal scene, the black eye of producer Horace Hardwick (Clive Hayward), the anti-male quips of Madge Hardwick (Rebecca Thornhill) and the “shocked” hotel managers, it is the slick comedy provided by Bates the butler (John Conroy) and ‘love me’ Alberto Beddini (Sebastien Torkia) that steals the show for me.

Bates is the stiff upper-lip type English butler insisting of the correct dress code for all occasions much to the chagrin of his employer Horace Hardwick. He is sent on a mission to find out about the mysterious Dale and is so doing disguises himself as a gondolier, a waiter and, in his words, a rather good dowager!

Italian ‘love me’ Alberto reminds me of Captain Bertorelli in ‘allo ‘allo, even down to the accent. Full of his own importance, he chases after Dale and is astounded when she agrees to marry him to escape the attentions of Jerry. Alberto certainly knows how to play the audience and when the hoots and cat calls greet his stripping-off for the wedding night scene, his antics accelerate. Now, what is it they say about a man wearing socks to bed?

If I had to voice one small criticism it would be about the mumbling of Clive Hayward as Horace Hardwick. He must have had some good lines but unfortunately a lot fell on deaf ears.

Top Hat brings all of what is good about a London show to the local theatre without being cut back or stunted, and I highly recommend it to lift the spirits.

Top Hat is at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury until Saturday, April 25. Performances are at 7.30pm, with Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm. Tickets cost from £15.50. Visit www.marlowetheatre.com or call 01227 787787.

There will be a British sign-language interpreted performance at 7.30pm on Thursday, April 23 and an audio-described performance at 2.30pm on Saturday, April 25.