Cheers! Raise a glass to this dream pub

REVIEW: The Choir of Man – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, July 21 to Saturday, July 25. Tuesday-Thursday: 7.30pm; Friday: 4pm and 8pm; Saturday: 2.30pm and 7.30pm).

Showtime! stars rating: *  *  *  *  *

SO… you’ve died and gone to pub heaven where the beer and shots never run out, there’s a song on everyone’s lips, and the landlord doesn’t call time.

Not quite. Actually, you’re at Malvern Theatres supping – yes really, because the stage is kitted out as a real bar with real beer for actors and public alike – literally soaking up two hours of fabulous fantasy.

Yes, fantasy. For while this wonderful hymn to the great British pub is a joyful, brimming and foaming draught of the finest the institution can offer, there is a word of caution buried deep in the bonhomie.

The problem of tax-hungry politicians with their national insurance and music licence hikes, not to mention the ever-rising cash cow that is drinks revenue, is carefully skirted round. Nevertheless, we are gently reminded that scores of the real thing close every week precisely because of these factors. Basically, it’s a case of use it or lose it.

But for the moment, let’s forget about all that gloom, and lose ourselves in the very best that the British boozer can offer, because The Choir of Man, notwithstanding its subject being completely idealised, is a rocking and riotous celebration that doesn’t draw breath for a single second.

Part boy band but mainly blokey-bloke blokes – the communal urinal scene had me I stitches – this superbly talented cast of nine do indeed cover a broad spectrum of British males doing what they’ve always done best.

There’s the joker, the handyman, the bore, the hard man – wot yoo lookin’ at mate? – and, of course, the more sensitive type in touch with his ‘feminine side’, this being the poet.

The show takes audience participation to another level, inviting members of the audience onstage before the performance and during the interval, where they can buy real beer or spritzers, while the cast also downs the pints yet somehow defying intoxication and the need to pay a visit to the little boys’ room.

Yes, it’s the pub of one’s dreams, a permanent party where the landlord is equally adept at leading the song choruses as well as manning the pumps. And at every turn, the regulars’ endless talents are on display, whether it’s playing guitars, ukeleles, piano, trumpet, or performing a mind-blowing tap routine.

The show’s creators, Nic Doodson and Andrew Kay, clearly did plenty of ‘research’ – a tough job but hey, someone’s got to do it - in the making of this barnstorming, boozy bonanza of an idea, because time and again they connect with the nature and nuances of the nation’s drinking experience.

Of course, singing has always been the willing partner to imbibing, and this show is packed with numbers by artists as diverse as Queen, Luther Vandross, Guns and Roses and Adele, combining to form rousing salutes to the joys of hop and grape.

The Choir of Man comes to Worcestershire direct from the West End, a worldwide hit that is now on its first British tour. It’s a foot-stomping, feel-good night of raucous entertainment, and firmly recommended as the perfect tonic to cheer us up in these uncertain times.