Surely I wasn't the only member of the audience to shift awkwardly as I watched Carousel, reputedly Rodgers and Hammerstein's favourite work?

The seats were knee-crampingly spartan, despite the theatre's revamp last summer. But it was the musical's dubious morality which got my goat -- apparently, if a man hits a woman and loves her, it needn't hurt. I'm sorry, but the fact the work dates from 1945 is no excuse.

Sam Kane is Billy Bigelow, a brawny carousel worker The tale is set in the late 19th century, in a New England coastal town. Billy Bigelow (a hulking Sam Kane) is a carousel worker with a murky past and a hot temper.

Despite warnings about the way he has treated women in the past, shy, virtuous -- and frankly a bit wet -- Julie Jordan (Jane Mark) agrees to marry Billy, but finds life less than romantic once she is a few weeks' pregnant and Billy has lashed out at her.

Things become a good deal darker, violent and, ultimately, ethereal when Billy, now unemployed and short of cash, agrees to take part in an armed robbery.

I think Carousel is meant to be a testimony to the power of love between flawed individuals, but it was hard to tell when the musical lurches between the thigh-slapping simplicity of June is Bustin' Out All Over (the point at which the musical starts coming to life), the comradely mawkishness of You'll Never Walk Alone and the rather doleful ending.

That said, the sprightly cast were excellent, particularly Kane, Richard Brightiff as the pompous fisherman Enoch Snow, with his infuriating 'hee-hee-hee' chuckle, and Lynsey Britton as Julie's feisty friend Carrie.

The singing was crisp -- perhaps a little better than some I've heard at the New Theatre -- and Wayne Sleep's choreography fairly good, without being outstanding.