Elizabeth Walker, Connor Arnold and Harry Curley in Summer in the City. Photo: Darren Bell

IT must have been quite daunting for young actor Harry Curley to frolic around the stage of the Upstairs At The Gatehouse theatre as photographer Bobby singing Dedicated Follower Of Fashion when the master storyteller who wrote the song was sitting in the third row.

But the Kinks frontman Ray Davies, like everybody else in the pews, could only have enjoyed these steps through the 1960s brought back to life by Summer In The City. It was icy outside, but this was one to warm you up.

It’s a jukebox of never-ending hits set in London during the swinging decade pulled together by John Plews, the theatre’s owner, and his friend Jennifer Selway.

Chance meetings among the clientele of a Carnaby Street cafe (it would probably be a Pret A Manger now) finds all of the customers and staff able to sing, wanting to sing for a career or wanting at least to manage a singing group.

There are some delicious time machine jokes in the mix: characters suggesting hit parade leaders, the Rolling Stones, would not still want to be gigging into their pension years and a journalist imagining what it would be like to take their phone everywhere. They’d never miss a story!

You are rooting for these chancers from the start, especially bashful traffic warden Vera, the soul of the show played to a standing ovation by Elizabeth Walker.

The classic numbers are all there – from the Shoop Shoop Song to I Only Want To Be With You but Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy is the boisterous best at the end of the first half.

The programme notes suggest this will be the last of Mr Plews and his wife Katie’s December shows, as they plan to depart from the scene early next year with the changing of a lease.

It’s been a hell of a run at a cracking fringe theatre, and Christmas won’t be the same without them. Even more reason to catch this one while you can.

Until January 15
www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com/