REVIEWING commitments elsewhere have led to the tardiness of this notice, so apologies to director Robert Readman, his cast and you, dear reader, for the delay.

Thankfully, Readman’s production has been playing to good houses – Wednesday’s postponement aside, when it would have been folly to have gone up against England v Croatia – and better still, the black-box John Cooper Studio has never looked better. Director and designer Readman has been busy completing the mezzanine level, while the covered seating is perfect for the cabaret setting for Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s show.

This is the musical that has just won awards galore with Imelda Staunton in the lead role in a big, glitzy National Theatre production with a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21. Readman uses the same version – there have been several – but jettisons one number in favour of restoring the fruitiest of all, Can That Boy Foxtrot, a high point of audience interaction for Susannah Baines’s Phyllis.

This is but one of several canny decisions by Readman, who favours the close-up over a grand scale, given the intimate, misguided, melancholic exchanges between the four leads, two married but fractured couples gathered for a Follies reunion 30 years since Phyllis and Sally’s (Tracey Rea) dancing days. He matches this with two pianos (musical director Barbara Chen and Sam Johnson), rather than an overpowering orchestra.

The supporting cast circling the stage is always on the move, and Baines, Rea, David Radford and Glynn Mills are terrific, both in song and dialogue, matched by young counterparts Gemma Louise Keane, Emma Louise Dickinson, Sam Hird and Adam Price.

Follies, Pick Me Up Theatre, John Cooper Studio @41 Monkgate York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01904 623568 or pickmeuptheatre.com