This Millie may be silly but it’s merry entertainment

Star Annie Aitken may be a newcomer but she shines brightly in this version of Thoroughly Modern Millie, the second in The Production Company’s 2019 season.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

*** and a half

Details: Arts Centre Melbourne, until 11 August.

Reviewer: Andrew Fuhrmann.

Thoroughly Modern Millie is a true soap bubble musical. It glimmers and it’s shimmery and it’s the airiest kind of entertainment.

Based on the 1967 Julie Andrews movie of the same name, the show is a merry spoof of the jazz-influenced Broadway musicals of the roaring twenties.

Annie Aitken is a marvel in this new production as the gloriously goofy Millie, a would-be gold digger from Kansas who moves to New York to marry her way to a fortune.

She’s gawky and zesty and all but irresistible. She can sing like a dream. And when she needs to she can holler like a mountain jack.

Dancers perform during a Thoroughly Modern Millie dress rehearsal at the State Theatre in Melbourne.

There are also strong contributions also from Nigel Huckle as Millie’s lover, Claire Lyon as her best friend and Adam-Jon Fiorentino as the target of her marriage plot.

Queenie van de Zandt is in fine form as a veteran lounge singer. But Marina Prior as the villainous Mrs Meers, a failed actor who sells young women into the white slave trade, is perhaps a little too pulled back.

Christina Smith’s endlessly glittery set effectively suggests a swanky Jazz Age club, with the orchestra on stage in a low deco-style bandstand.

Christopher Horsey’s choreography is a joyful medley of every iconic dance from the twenties you could name. And the dancing throughout, especially the tap dancing, is utterly mesmerising.

If Thoroughly Modern Millie has a weakness — apart from its essential inanity — it’s Jeanine Tesori’s unmemorable score. The only tunes that really stand out are those borrowed from others.

Still, the orchestra in this production, under musical director Peter Casey, is crisp and well-balanced throughout.

There are 11 performances only, so — as is the way with soap bubbles — you don’t have long to enjoy this absurdly silly extravagance.