TOP HAT proshot on Great Performances TONIGHT - set the DVR

PSA for everyone who keeps complaining that golden-age musicals never get filmed -- the West End production of Irving Berlin's TOP HAT premieres tonight on PBS:
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/irving-berlins-top-hat-about/17681/

Great Performances has been on an absolute tear lately with proshots, and I'm here for it. TOP HAT is one of those scores that's just packed with standards back-to-back (Cheek to Cheek, Top Hat White Tie and Tails, Isn't This a Lovely Day) and the tap choreography in the West End production was apparently a showstopper.

Anyone in the UK who caught this live -- worth staying up for? And bigger question: why aren't producers and equity getting together over here to make this more affordable? 

BrodyFosse123 said: "Enjoy!"

I wish i did. I found the dancing to be superb, but the acting really dull.

I thought that although Phillip Attmore's dancing was top-notch, his acting was particularly bad. His singing is slightly better than his acting, but not by much.

With a script as hokey as this one, it's my o[pinion that actors have to work harder at finding a sweet spot between just cartoonishly spouting the lines and playing too close to realism. "Singin' in the Rain" is similar in that way, but the script and characters are better written. Attmore didn't meet the brief (beyond his exceptional dancing skills), IMO.

I was also a little disappointed in James Clyde as Bates. I felt him slipping into Peter Bartlett's overwrought Maitre 'D voice from "She Loves Me" on some lines.

Mel Brooks has forever ruined the song, "Puttin' on the Ritz" for me because I can never STOP hearing his Monster from "Young Frankenstein" sing that title line in his affected Monster voice.

...and of course, the song has that written-in musical rest just before the title line that sets me up every time to chime in as the Monster.

I really wanted to enjoy this, but I didn't.

Updated On: 5/16/26 at 06:08 PM

What I found odd about the production is that in the original film the Brits are caricatured like the glorious Eric Blore as the valet. But in the UK Chichester production it felt like the Yanks were being leaned into as cartoon characters.