Humour and cynicism are the secret weapons of this captivating Sixties musical, scored by Frank Loesser, which launches a Chichester season thematically devoted to tricksters, deceivers and fakes.
Although How to succeed in Business Without Really Trying lacks music to remember or many more catchy songs than A Secretary Is Not Toy, there is sufficient sharp satire in Martin Duncan's slick production to keep any lighthearted audience highly entertained and diverted. This, then, is much more of an acerbic musical comedy than a musical.
Having written the highcomedy book for the classic Guys and Dolls, with its affectionate view of low- life New Yorkers, Abe Burrows moved on to How to Succeed and took swipes at city business ethics or the lack of them.
The shows bolsters the old American dream that anyone can make it big in a business world brimming with subservience, cowardice and hypocrisy.
All you need, Burrows argues, is faithfully to follow a simple guide book whose title is also the musical's.
An ambitious windowwasher, J.Pierrepont Finch, beautifully played and sung by Joe McFadden with diplomatic charm, modesty and guile as his weapons of mass seduction, wheedles his way into the offices of the Worldwide Wicket Company. Quickly he snakes his way up the greasy ladder to become Chairman.
Pleasure is stirred by the spectacle of Finch's remorseless rise to glory. He makes all his luck from the moment he bumps into James Bolam's tyrannical managing director, JB Biggley, and uses this collision to wangle a job in the postroom.
Burrow's satire at the expense of office politics really hits home. "I look for men with ideas and not one of them will do what I tell them too," complains the monomanic Biggley to his cowed staff.
Francis O'Connor's handsome, mobile silver and grey art deco becomes the scene of Finch's diplomatic triumphs. Comically impervious to sexual advances from Fiona Dunn's overmature Rosemary, artfully exploiting Biggley's several passions for his old University, knitting and the terrific Annette McLaughlin's airhead bimbo, Finch makes career advancement look a breeze.
The second half takes a farcical, unfunny turn and culminates in the sentimental falsities of the song Brotherhood of Man. Yet How to Succeed still manages to be that rare thing - a seriously amusing musical.
Chichester Festival Theatre. Closes 10 September. Information: 01243 781312.
