There may be nothing explicitly Christmassy about Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s peerless 1952 screen musical Singin’ in the Rain. Yet – as director Raz Shaw’s bold, faithful and highly accomplished staging for the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester attests – the songbook by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown immediately transports us to a place of unashamedly festive, feel-good entertainment.
Their celebrated numbers (among them such beloved classics as Make ’Em Laugh, You Were Meant for Me and Good Morning) were originally written for MGM musicals of the Twenties and Thirties, then repurposed by screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green for this light-hearted story of love and rivalry, set in a film studio at the dawn of the “talkie” era.
Don Lockwood (Louis Gaunt) and Lina Lamont (Laura Baldwin) are stars of silent cinema, whose canny publicists boost their profile by concocting stories of an off-screen love affair. In truth, Lockwood’s heart belongs to another actress, the talented Kathy Selden (Carly Mercedes Dyer).
