Contact, Queen's Theatre, London

Whatever Contact is, it's an entertaining show

Who cares about definitions? People are supposedly worried about Contact. If it's a musical, why is the music only on records? Can't be a play because the plot is told in dance, nor a ballet because the dancers talk. So what: it's a show, and an entertaining one. Surely that's enough.

Actually there are three stories, but all on one theme: loneliness, how to overcome it, and what happens if you don't. First, a trio with no problems. They bring to life the people in Fragonard's famous 18th century painting The Swing, and the swinging girl (cute Helen Anker) proves every bit as libidinous as I always supposed. The only surprises come from the activities of the two chaps, one pushing while the other gloats up her skirts. Are they as they seem? Of course not: in fact twice over.

No problems about contact there, but almost without a pause we are in a New York trattoria 200 years later, where Sarah Wildor is a wife bullied by her pig of a husband (Craig Urbani). Happily, while he is feeding his face she has happy dreams, the happiest being that she shoots him before having fun with everyone else. So a happy ending then? Alas no; Piggy comes back and she ends in tears.

But along the way, this section contains a lot of fun, and shows Wildor looking more relaxed than she ever did in leading roles with the Royal Ballet. She has acquired a delicious new red hairdo and a neat American accent (although the former proves more consistent than the latter). I defy you not to be enchanted by her dippy grin; here's a star getting across to a new, wider audience.

On to the present day and a miserable advertising executive (Michael Praed) saved from suicide when complaints from the woman in the apartment below drive him out to a bar where he meets a beautiful blonde (Leigh Zimmerman). She loves dancing, he can't dance, but we don't let a little thing like that stop us, do we? And about the woman below? Don't ask, but you've probably guessed right.

None of this is too profound, but it isn't meant to be, and the unusual three-part structure ensures that everything moves along with no excess content. Direction and choreography are by Susan Stroman, who also invented the whole concept together with the writer, John Weidman. Stroman has found a London cast of highly varied but uniformly good dancers who can also act, and has given them wonderful things to do, all vividly expressive. Excellent sets too by Thomas Lynch; how do they change so fast? Don't worry what Contact is or isn't; just call it a hit.