The glorious evening of entertainment offered by 42nd Street is first and foremost a matter of the tunes.

Can any show fail when it boasts numbers like Getting Out of Town, We're in the Money and I Only Have Eyes for You?

And this is only naming a few of Harry Warren and Al Dubin's great songs that we hear before the interval.

After come the title number 42nd Street, the wonderful Lullaby of Broadway and the affecting About a Quarter to Nine.

This last comes at the meatiest moment of the drama. The setting is the changing room at the 42nd Street Theatre where Pretty Ladies - a make-or-break musical for choreographer Julian Marsh (Paul Nicholas) and his company - is about to open.

Its injured star Dorothy Brock (Julia J Nagle) - her foot in plaster - is there to wish good luck to her replacement Peggy Sawyer (Jessica Punch). This is a scene in which old gives way to new - as it ever must.

Peggy has been plucked from the chorus line: we are seeing a bid for stardom that must not be muffed, for her sake and for that of the company.

No guesses how it turns out. The 1933 Warner Brothers film 42nd Street offered, of course, the prototype for the 'chorus-girl makes good' plot.

It was also the movie that helped America to dance its way out of the Great Depression.

Astonishingly, it had to wait until 1980 to be transformed into a stage show. Since then, it has been delighting audiences all over the world.

The glittering, big budget revival at the New Theatre this week offers quality all the way. Its tone is set by the assured star turn from Mr Nicholas, whose own panache and polish are reflected in every aspect of the production - and especially in the dancing.

The demanding tap routines that punctuate the evening are a tribute to the hard work of choreographer Graeme Henderson and his expert hoofers. None of them puts a foot wrong as far as I could see - and, as importantly, hear, since the rhythmic tattoo of the tapping matters just as much as the sight of it.

In the pit, musical director Gareth Williams and his nine-piece band maintain the impetus of the evening, with outstanding work from trumpet and saxes.

Singing and acting are in every way exemplary, with especially scene-stealing work from Bruce Montague as Dorothy's sugar daddy Abner and Ashley Nottingham as the fast-tapping tenor Billy Lawlor.

The show runs until Saturday.