“WHAT a nice 65-minute movie is buried therein” was one American critic’s judgement on Thoroughly Modern Millie, the 135-minute film, and I felt the same as I left Thoroughly Modern Millie, the 150-minute stage musical.

I’m not saying it’s all a fuss about nothing, but there’s got to be something, well, insufficient about a show whose prime merit is its costumes.

Yes, Amanda Holden is appealing as the girl from the sticks, Maureen Lipman amusing as a white slaver, Jeanine Tesori’s music hummable, Dick Scanlan’s lyrics literate, the 1920s atmosphere pleasant. But the thin, rather corny, story left me yearning for a bite of Les Mis or, even better, a big wallow in Anything Goes.

Holden’s sweet, demure Millie hies from the world’s corn centre, Kansas, and is thrilled to be in New York, a city that announces itself by snatching her handbag and leaving her as what passes for destitute in Broadway musicals.

That’s to say, she takes a room in an all-girl hotel called the Priscilla (prop. M. Lipman) and a job with Sincere Trust Insurance (prop. one Trevor Graydon). Her thoroughly modern plan is to shun romance and marry a rich man, preferably Graydon himself, in Craig Urbani’s enjoyable performance a blend of Incredible Hulk and Mr Clean.

Well, guess what? As we know from the moment Millie bangs into an unpretentious cove called Jimmy Smith, her heart will triumph over her head and all of her will end up with him. But the route to that destination could be more unpredictable. There’s a misunderstanding between her and Mark McGee’s affable Jimmy, but that’s speedily sorted. There’s an attempt to kidnap her best friend, but that’s also easily overcome.

How could it be otherwise when the villain is Lipman’s Mrs Meers, a fake-Chinese moll with cigarette holders in her lacquered wig and a barmy glint in her eye as she offers her victims “a soothing cup of gleen tea”? As often in that narcissistic form, the Broadway musical, hard-seeming New York is as soft as Oklahoma butter. Girls trill and twitter, chirrup and tweet, and, when given sips from hip-flasks in a mildly smoky speakeasy, perform variations on the charleston.

But the dancing is snappy, especially in a sequence when orange-and-blue-clad stenographers’ feet tap in unison with their typewriters, and, there and elsewhere, the costumes show you why Martin Pakledinaz won the 2002 Tony for his designs for Millie.

Box office: 0870-906 3798 This review appeared in late editions yesterday