In the pastiche WW1 propaganda number “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat”, Sheridan Smith as Fanny Brice as, in turn, a Brooklyn G.I. named Schwartz patters, “I’m through and through red, white and bluish/I talk this way because I’m… British.” Bob Merrill’s lyrics obviously subvert the expectation of the rhyme “…Jewish”, but it serves as an emblem of this revival of Jule Styne and Merrill’s 1964 musical based on Brice and her relationship with husband Nick Arnstein.

Smith is already a national treasure at the age of 34. A natural comedienne on stage and television alike and an outstanding musical actress, she has also won an Olivier award for her performance in Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path. She would seem a natural fit for the role of Fanny Brice, but there is another factor unaddressed. Throughout its long and tortuous genesis, Funny Girl constantly faced the perceived need to cast someone as Brice who was sufficiently, well, Jewish to carry it off. Although I am not a wholesale believer in the Jewish mythology of Broadway, there are a number of instances which are surely irrefutable. Fanny Brice is one such, both in her life and in her Funny Girl incarnation. And Smith, in Michael Mayer’s production at the Menier, just doesn’t get there.  She gives us pert when what is required is brash.

Impassioned argument scenes and numbers such as “Don’t Rain On My Parade” need to be belted out, not simply in fidelity to Barbra Streisand who originated the role on both stage and screen, but because that’s what the material demands. Smith only begins to unleash her full power on the final few bars of “Parade” and its reprise.  The performers may be reining in because of the intimate size of the Menier, to unmuzzle themselves on the show’s transfer to the Savoy next year (which had been announced even before this initial run began); likewise, it sometimes feels as if we are here seeing only the bottom half of Michael Pavelka’s set design.

The show (original working title My Man, after one of Brice's signature numbers) has a dual focus; it is about both Brice and Arnstein. It also whitewashes their history together: we see Brice effectively sharing her first kiss with him, when in reality she was already divorced by then, and he is portrayed as a risky wheeler-dealer rather than an outright con man.)  Darius Campbell (formerly Danesh) is marvellous at appearing on a stage, but after all this time he still can’t really act. As Arnstein, his voice is smooth as chocolate, but it’s commercial chocolate that probably wouldn’t meet the EU requirements to carry the name. As for Smith, she is never less than wonderful, but this time she’s not quite the right kind of wonderful.

Written for the Financial Times.