The World Goes Round, St James Studio

The World Goes Round has been, well, going round for 25 years. The John Kander and Fred Ebb catalogue lends itself to a tight-knit review format – Cabaret and Chicago embrace that genre anyway – and the songs, even from show to show, impact on each other in interesting ways. But surely it’s time to update the compilation; to include later work and to celebrate with more than just the title number John Kander’s favourite score The Kiss of the Spiderwoman. That title song is a corker, of course, but the final modulation was courting disaster for the normally SO secure Oliver Tompsett.

Tompsett and Steffan Lloyd-Evans made up the male contingent of this latest offering of the show at the St James Theatre Studio and the full quintet – the powerhouse that is leggy Debbie Kurup, Sally Samad, and Alexandra Da Silva making for the female majority – were a satisfying blend of “better together” with the arrangements for vocal quintet scoring most of the evening’s bullseyes. “Money, Money” and the inevitable crowd-pleasing, let’s hit ’em with one more chorus “New York, New York” sending us off happy and slightly delirious to Lizaland.

The two best songs – ballads both – “A Quiet Thing” and “Isn’t This Better?” – don’t really need singing, just inhabiting. Alexandra Da Silva definitely GOT the latter.