Brigadoon. Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.

Is there a reason why Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Scottish-set 1947 musical Brigadoon has not been staged in London for 35 years? The piece features a handful of likeable songs, particularly Almost Like Being in Love, and the score offers a fantastic platform for choreography-driven storytelling. A charitable explanation is that contemporary audiences struggle to connect with the piece’s mid-twentieth-century sentimentality and lack of edge. A less charitable take is that the storyline is completely bonkers. There are more holes in the plot than in the underwear of a Scotsman wearing nothing under his kilt. And yes, costume designer Sami Fendall delivers a predictable surfeit of pastel tartan and pleats in this revival.

Director Drew McOnie and adapter Rona Munro paper over the cracks by dialling up the dream-like whimsy, foregrounding the show’s immediate post-war context, and delivering some stonkingly good dance routines. The piece looks good and Laura Bangay’s impeccable musical direction sounds excellent, but the cracks remain.

It is the first morning of Spring. Hunky Bomber Captain Tommy (Louis Gaunt) and his cynical navigator, Jeff (Cavan Clarke), bail out of their burning plane over the Scottish highlands. Tommy experiences an ill-defined mystical revelation when he touches the ground, perhaps suggesting that we are occupying a dream space. Jeff, who “doesn’t believe in much I can’t see and touch”, is more concerned with being rescued.

By happenstance, the duo encounter the friendly, telephone-free village of Brigadoon, where feisty but wholesome yellow-clad sisters Fiona (a tremendous Georgina Onuorah on review night) and Jean (Jasmine Jules Andrews) are preparing for the latter’s marriage to doe-eyed Charlie (a honey-voiced Gilli Jones). Fiona casts her eye and a hand on Tommy, now stripped down to his t-shirt, and likes what she sees. The captain is equally smitten. Flighty, flirty local wench Meg (Nic Myers gets the best songs and makes the most of the evening’s meagre comic fare) gets the hots for Jeff. “Don’t lead him off the map altogether, Meg”, someone warns her, but she is not listening. She takes his shoes off, and it’s a wonder she stops there.

A complication arises when some extended exposition from local seer Miss Lundle (Anne Lacey) reveals that Brigadoon is lost in time in the Scottish mists, destined only to reappear one day every century. A stranger can stay if he falls in love with a local. Unhappy villager Harry (Danny Nattrass genuinely looks miserable, but boy, can he dance) loves Jean in vain and feels imprisoned in the town. Yet should he depart, the entire village, strapping lads and milkmaid lasses alike, will disappear into the smirr. Will Tommy and Fiona snatch their only chance for love? Will Harry bring it crashing down? Will Meg keep her hands to herself?

In the original book, Tommy and Jeff were tourists. Scottish writer Munro’s adaptation foregrounds what must have been a recent dilemma to many in the original Broadway audience. Do you snatch love while you can or wait, and face the real possibility of death in battle? Absent the two original scenes set in New York, the story arc feels stronger, the contrast between the peace of the town and the battlefield beyond emerges more clearly, and the ending makes marginally more sense.

Given McOnie’s background in choreography, it is no surprise that the big dance sequences impress, offering up a whirl of ballet-infused Scottish country reels, springs, steps, and hops. A nifty sword dance sets up a clash between Harry and Charlie. But McOnie find more pathos in the smaller pieces, notably a stunning grief-stricken solo turn from Chrissy Brooke’s Maggie, and a romance-infused, blindfold duet between Harry and Jean.

Yet elsewhere, the piece still feels in need of updating.  Aside from the diversity in the casting, an occasional nod to Gaelic, and the fact that the whole village is seemingly necking red wine at 10 am, it is hard to identify much that is modern about this version of Scotland. The Land of Oz has a stronger affinity with Clapham North. Fendall’s costumes, free-flowing kilts and shawls in muted yellows, tablecloth pinks, olive greens, and mud browns, look fantastic, but are straight off the lid of a shortbread tin. Basia Bińkowska’s stripped pine set, ramped from moor top to village glen below, captures a certain severity in the mountainous Highland landscape, at least until it is festooned with bagpipes, drums, and more purple heather that you can shake a thistle at. This Brigadoon remains a love letter to a Scotland that one feels never existed. Some occasionally cod Scot accents do not help. It still lacks edge.

Book & Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner (Adapted by Rona Munro)

Music: Frederick Loewe

Director:  Drew McOnie