While recognising that Show Boat is a bench mark in the history of the American musical, I have often felt that in previous productions its construction has been scrappy, particularly in Act 11, but thanks to modem scenic and lighting technology, plus the genius of director Harold Prince, these have largely been ironed out. Prince has returned to the feel of the original 1927 production and has added some innovations of his own to provide the show with a seamless flow in telling a 40 year story which begins in 1887 and ends with the onset of the Jazz Age. For all its incidental aspects, Show Boat is really a hymn of praise to showbusiness itself, from the melodrama and sentimental songs aboard Cap'n Andy's Cotton Blossom, to the advent of movies, night-clubs and hot jazz, all encapsulated in Susan Stroman' s vibrant choreography of the finale.

Show Boat is thus practically a history of the musical in itself, and it is for its music that it will always be remembered. In this it has astonishing variety - O1' Man River, the moving Misery's Comin' Aroun', which has been restored to the score, You Are Love, Life Upon the Wicked Stage, the surprisingly English-sounding Bill, and several others which have become standards of popular song.

The breadth and scope of Harold Prince’s production would seem to call for a slightly larger stage than that of the Prince Edward but the technology works like a dream, fading and cutting in cinema-like fashion. Eugene Lee's overall production design and Richard Pilbrow's lighting  being equally impressive. The all-American cast has the verve and energy we have come to expect, George Grizzard and Carole Shelley bringing humour and humanity to Cap’n Andy and Parthy, Joel Blum and Clare Leach a vaudevillian gusto to Frank and Ellie. Michael Bell has a bass voice of effortless depth as Joe, Gretha Boston genuine soul and pain as Queenie. And Terry Burrell is equally striking in the thankless role of Julie. If the show has a weakness, it is that the romantic leads suffer from the sketchiest characterisations, but Teri Hansen and Hugh Panaro do what they can with them and have the compensation of some of the best songs.