A Man of No Importance

The Arts is one of London's most ­cheerless theatres, but this musical transfer from the tiny Union fits it snug as a bug, sending a flood of warmth through the stalls. In part it's because the surroundings add to the atmosphere and the ­feeling that we are in a Dublin church hall ­in the early 1960s, where the St Imelda's Players are ­rehearsing a performance of Oscar Wilde's Salome directed by Alfie, a bus conductor. The show with the "immodest ­dancing" proves to be a step too far for some of the group's many drama queens and also the church ­authorities, but not before it has revealed ­something about the lives of its cast. In particular, the life of the middle-aged Alfie, still living with his disappointed, unmarried sister, Lily, who finds it easy to reveal through art what he cannot admit in real life: the love that dare not speak its name. In a West End full of multimillion-pound, high-lip-gloss musicals, there is ­something really charming about this low-key evening, and although Ben De Wynter's production is ­ramshackle in places, it holds together and has odd moments of ­delightful ­inspiration, ­particularly in the bus scenes. As you might expect from a musical that has a book by Terrence McNally and music and ­lyrics by Stephen ­Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, there is no holding back on the ­sentimentality in this ­celebration of the transforming ­possibilities of art, but it slips down very nicely, like a cup of sweet, milky tea. Perhaps the unwanted pregnancy and the ghost of Wilde wandering around handing out advice like a 19th-century gay agony aunt are more than the plot can bear, but this is an honest little show that wears its heart ­on its sleeve as the mirror of art is held up to the hard ­realities and poetry of everyday life.