Ignore the passing references to Eddie Fisher or Sputnik, and it would be easy to mistake this “Lost Musicals” venture — a genial example of late-period Noël Coward — for one of Cole Porter’s youthful romps. All those cruise ship liaisons and misadventures instantly evoke memories of Anything Goes. You can see why the critics were underwhelmed. And yet Sail Away turns out to be well worth reviving. If Coward’s languid tone must have seemed hopelessly passé in the age of Elvis Presley, there remains a sense of timelessness about his shrewd humour. While the book is flimsy, the music and lyrics keep us amused, and Ian Marshall Fisher’s semi-staged production is yet another example of how the spirited “Lost Musicals” ethos — with the cast performing in evening dress, accompanied by the musical director Chris Walker at the piano— can triumph over a limited budget.

A sterling collective effort compensated for a slightly uncertain performance by Penny Fuller, ill at ease in a lead role that Elaine Stritch had once made her own. Playing the brash but vulnerable ship’s hostess, Mimi Paragon, Fuller seemed in need of more rehearsal time. It didn’t help, perhaps, that her romance with her wholesome young admirer — ably played by Henry Luxemburg — never amounted to more than a perfunctory plot device.

Fortunately, the two are surrounded by reliable old hands, including the ship’s purser, James Vaughan. As well as winning belly-laughs on The Passenger’s Always Right, he supplies the voice of a spoilt but unseen brat who deserves to be dropped overboard. Vivienne Martin and Terence Bayler regularly steal scenes as the vacuous old couple who declare their mutual loathing on the charmingly cynical Bronxville Darby and Joan. Coward’s wit also illuminates the phrasebook satire in Mimi’s Useless Useful Phrases, and he lets rip with Old World disdain on the climactic Why Do The Wrong People Travel?

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