This stage musical about the legendary record label founded by Berry Gordy focuses its story on Berry Gordy; based on the autobiography of Berry Gordy, the script is written by… you guessed it. Gordy, a songwriter and producer rather than a performer, seems to get more numbers to sing than figures such as Diana Ross or Marvin Gaye; the character of Gaye even cedes to Gordy the lead on “What’s Going On”, which in reality Gordy disliked so much Gaye had to go on strike to secure its release.

OK, so it’s a hagiography: a modern, feet-of-clay hagiography, showing Gordy as too driven and ambitious, rather like a job applicant “admitting” that their greatest weakness is perfectionism. And it cuts corners sometimes too conveniently: the narrative framing device is the label’s 25th-anniversary celebration in 1983, i.e. the year before Gaye was murdered (and five before Gordy sold the label). But for every omission, or every saccharine misstep such as the Diana-Ross-in-Vegas audience-participation segment, there is a laudable inclusion.

This is not simply the story of how a young Detroit man discovered artists such as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations and the Four Tops as well as the aforementioned and founded a musical hit factory such as has never been seen before or since. Gordy is keenly aware that Motown stood as a beacon of hope to black Americans, and he does not stint on showing the more radical social currents of the 1960s in particular; even the Detroit riots get a look-in.

And, of course, it’s a joy to hear all those spine-tingling classic tunes, even if coloratura-compulsive Cedric Neal as Gordy can never quite stick to them. My God, but there are a lot of them, from “Reet Petite” via “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” (both Gaye and Gladys Knight versions) to “Super Freak”: even the programme grows coy, but the show seems to contain 60 or so. For all that the first half in particular often sounds like a 1980s-style megamix this is, in both score and narrative terms, one of the strongest jukebox musicals of recent years.

Written for the Financial Times.