By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN?: Saturday 23 May (matinee), opens 3 June and runs through 11 July 2026 and then tours through 14 November 2026 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Helen George (Love In Idleness, Menier) may still be best known for TV’s Call The Midwife and is the central character here as Long Island socialite Tracy Lord planning a June 1938 wedding to accountant George Kittredge.

• Read on for reasons including how this production maintains the general standard of this venue’s traditional summer musical blockbuster revival

Events are thrown into turmoil when Lord’s ex-boyfriend Dexter, played here by Julian Ovenden (Power Of Sail, Menier Chocolate Factory), gatecrashes the wedding.

The Barbican has a recent history of staging lavish revivals of classic musicals and Cole Porter’s High Society very much fits a bill including Anything Goes and Kiss Me Kate.

Spring into summer is very much the time to be enjoying a wedding and while London is revelling in the hottest day of the year so far outside, inside the Barbican Theatre the temperature is no less hot.

High Society‘s core includes classics like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, True Love, Well Did You Evah?, and Let’s Misbehave.

Director Rachel Kavanaugh (Here And Now) knows how to get the best from a big cast and this production features a 28-strong cast as well as a band of 17.

Felicity Kendal appeared in Anything Goes and here plays Lord’s mother and we note that she’s not currently expected to join the tour after this run so catch this production now if you want to see her.

Similarly Carly Mercedes Dyer, also from Anything Goes, only appears to be playing London and here sizzles during I‘ve Got You Under My Skin although we would’ve liked her to feature more.

George’s performance may not have had the showstopping quality of Sutton Foster’s in Anything Goes but this production’s unexpected secret weapon is Ovenden as Lord’s ex-boyfriend Dexter who was clearly the best singer.

We could even hear unexpected audience sobs as he and Lord duetted True Love at this performance as their characters contemplated both what had gone right and what had gone wrong with their relationship.

Unfortunately, this production couldn’t match the farcical chaos of the version we last saw in the round at the Old Vic in 2015 but is cast well and maintains the general standard of this venue’s traditional summer musical blockbuster revival.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Barbican Theatre Tickets and Tickets
• Have you seen a Cole Porter show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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