I'm crazy for the new touring production of Gershwin favourite Crazy For You. Based on the George and Ira Gershwin musical Girl Crazy, it was first staged in London in the early 1990s on a grand scale with a large chorus of tapping showgirls dancing the night away and a magnificent set – an iconic production for a whole generation. The latest version of the show is an actor-musician production which comes to us via the Watermill Theatre in Newbury where it played for a season last summer. It might not have the same budget, cast and orchestra of the original but more than makes up for that in its invention, exuberance and sheer joy and wonder.

The plot – what little plot there is in shows like this – focuses on Bobby Child, a banker who is sent to Nevada to close down a failing theatre. Bobby falls in love with Polly, the daughter of the theatre’s owner, who naturally takes a dislike to him when she finds out who he is. Ever determined to win her over, Bobby adopts the guise of Hungarian impresario Zangler in an attempt to save the theatre and win her heart.

Tom Chambers has good form in this type of musical comedy having appeared in Top Hat, but is actually even more at home in the role of Bobby Child. Now a fully paid up song-and-dance man, Chambers moves frenetically around the stage in his hilarious attempts to win the heart of Charlotte Wakefield’s feisty Polly Baker, and sings and dances like a dream. There’s an amusing scene of mistaken identity with Neil Ditt’s exotically-named showman Bela Zangler too.

Wakefield – graduate of such shows as Spring Awakening and Oklahoma! – is a funny and fully-fledged leading lady who keeps Chambers’ Bobby on his toes until the very end of the show. She sings the gorgeous Gershwin ballads ‘Someone to watch over me’ and ‘But not for me’ with real insight. Caroline Flack also makes little more than a cameo appearance as Irene Roth who fights Wakefield’s Polly for Bobby – in short, the former Strictly winner dances better than she sings.

Director Paul Hart and Choreographer Nathan M. Wright have integrated the music playing and the action seamlessly, so that the actor-musician concept enhances rather than detracts from the action. The musicians blend together so well that at times it’s like watching friends having a jamming session together. Amongst those multi-talented musicians all playing live on stage are Hollie Cassar as Tess on alto saxophone, piano and double bass and Ned Rudkins-Stow as Moose on guitar, banjo and double bass – but really all of them deserve a name check.

Crazy For You is probably the best of the shows of its type and is a toe-tapping musical comedy – in spite of some truly corny jokes! But it’s the Gershwin showstoppers that are pure timeless classic American song book that really make this show something special. All time classics such as ‘Shall we dance’, ‘I got rhythm’, ‘They can't take that away from me’ and ‘Nice work if you can get it’ really never date, in this story of the power of showbusiness to lift a depression and get the community back on its feet. Of course there’s a beautiful happy ending, with a giant moon coming down carrying the two leading players. This crazily good production of Crazy For You will surely send you out into the night with a spring in your step and joy in your heart – who could ask for anything more?