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Despite the fact the lyrics and music are by Stephen Sondheim, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is not regarded as one of the master's greatest works. The book is by a pair of practised funsters and the aim of the show is purely to entertain - which it does magnificently under Edward Hall's direction, the only thing remotely classical in a musical set in 200 BC being that it is loosely, in every sense of the word, based on a story by Plautus about a conniving slave who creates mayhem in the lives of his masters.
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Add to this Philip Quast as the grandiloquent general and a collection of striking young women, with Caroline Sheen as the unbelievably virginal Philia, and you have a show which is a joy from beginning to end and will surely enjoy a long life at the National and elsewhere.
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