Irma La Douce, when you get right down to it, is simply a cosy little musical about the work ethic. Irma's work is a bit more demanding than some, and she apparently gives it her full attention, but when she falls in love in the first scene with the naive law student who gallantly protects her from her own protector by waving his law book, her "bourgeois" emotion momentarily interrupts her career.

The girl has principles, however, and because "you can't live if you don't work", she stops indulging in pleasure and returns to dealing in it, supporting her law student with her earnings. Reluctant to take her work away from her, and jealous of the clients filing out of her bedroom, he devises a plan to keep her content. He impersonates a client who will pay her 10,000 francs a day for her exclusive services and pays her by recycling the money that she gives him every evening.

It gets wearing, particularly when he has to take a job as a floor polisher simply to pay the bar bill that comes from his new reputation as the best mec in Paris. When Irma's affections begin to move from Nestor-le-Fripe to his kindly impersonation, Oscar, Nestor takes the drastic step of apparently killing Oscar. That puts him on to Devil's Island, from which he will escape, and it should come as no surprise that it will be the tax collector who finally proves such a solid citizen innocent of murder.

What comes as a surprise to me is how flimsy the whole thing appears. In what should have been my formative years I saw Peter Brook's original production of the musical, and it is neither that nor Elizabeth Seal's performance that I remember but the later non-musical film.

Marguerite Monnot's music does not, for instance, cry out to be whistled. It does, from time to time, allow dancers to kick their legs high. The book and lyrics by Julian More, David Heneker and Monty Norman do not stick in the memory. They do occasionally stick in the gullet, as in the last song, "Christmas Child", devoutly sung as a hymn to Irma's baby, but depending for its success on quite another child's nativity.

The whole thing seems to have been mounted as a tribute to the legs of Helen Gelzer who first showed them in London in Bubbling Brown Sugar. She also brings an interesting voice to the part, rich in the lower registers, but though she is the only woman in the cast of 17, hers is not the most demanding role. That belongs rather to Charles Dance in the double act of Nestor and Oscar and his best moment comes when he is alone, arguing between his two selves.

© Ned Chaillet

One could have wished for a more subtle and sophisticated production of "Irma La Douce" than the one now at the Shaftesbury, but I cannot help wishing this charming show well.

The musical took both Paris and London by storm some 20 years ago when it was considered daring and the last word in chic.

The revival lacks the dazzling stylishness of Peter Brook's direction but it boasts a superb Irma in Helen Gelzer, who first delighted us in the long-running "Bubbling Brown Sugar".

Like brown sugar, this adorable Irma is sweet and unrefined. And she certainly bubbles. A girl of the streets who helps all Paris to relax, she is incandescent with vitality. When singing, her big generous mouth produces the deepest and wildest of notes, and her legs are quite simply the loveliest in London.

The mischievous little plot tells how Irma falls in love with a penniless law student, who becomes jealous of her numerous admirers. So he dons a false beard, to provide her with her dream millionaire, only to discover that she prefers the imposter to himself.

The show is directed and choreographed by Billy Wilson, whose over-anxious American methods lash it into a frenzy which does not always suit its delicate wit. The atmosphere of back-street Montmartre is suggested so jokily that there is no time to hint at that idelness of the heart which leads to sin -- and which is half the point.

But the music of Marguerite Monnot remains delicious, as do the lyrics of Julian More, David Heneker and Monty Norman. Of the 16 men who act as foil to Miss Gelzer, I like both the lawyer of Charles Dance and the bistro-keeper of Bernard Spear, and I commend them all for their lusty choral singing.

© John Barber

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