Billed as a Burlesque Musical, this show was a clever telling of an illicit gay love story, set in wartime London, which was interwoven with the transformation of Northern county lass Maggie Brown into celebrity artiste Miss Nightingale. For the love story there were tender ballads, while raunchy and saucy ditties in Miss N’s act provided the burlesque element. Often these lyrics underlined elements of the previous scene.

As the lovers, Tomm Coles and IIan Goodman gave strong performances – one an aristocrat club owner, the other a Jewish songwriter. Their scenes together were sensitively handled and Coles’s singing of Mr Nightingale was quite touching. Their story reflected the dangers of blackmail and prosecution threatening such affairs at the time.

The title role, played by Amber Topaz, allowed her to display an enormous talent, segueing from the poignant ballads as Maggie into her double entendre, bump and grind cabaret numbers. In these, she created wicked pastiches of Dietrich, Gracie Fields and Coward.

The witty book is well written as are the words and lyrics. The second act might benefit from some slight trimming but overall this was an excellent production that proved most moving as well as providing great entertainment.