Some productions stick in the mind for aeons, which is bad news for revivals of the same show that are unlucky enough to follow them. And I must confess that, despite the soaring notes that came from Lesley Garrett last night, I spent much of Lindsay Posner’s staging of Carousel nostalgically recalling Nicholas Hytner’s great production at the National a decade ago.

Not the details. Just the overall feel, which was simple yet sad and, in its unpretentiously solemn way, as deep as a Broadway musical could be.

Yet gradually I thawed, as caught up in Hammerstein’s book as I was captivated by maybe the finest score even Rodgers ever produced. Yes, the show was overmiked, meaning that some songs sounded shrill. Yes, the artlessly cheerful millgirls who form half the chorus swirled about to annoyingly cute effect. Yes there wasn’t enough gravity in that wonderfully subjunctive love song, If I Loved You, and, yes, that meant that Alexandra Silber and Jeremiah James were failing to displace Joanna Riding and Michael Hayden on my mental hard disk. But by the famous ballet at the end I was won over once again.

But I’m jumping ahead of those who don’t know the tale of Julie Jordan and Billy Bigelow. She’s a millgirl, naive and innocent even by the standards of the American sticks in 1873 and, as played by Silber, sweet and fresh enough. He’s a fairground barker when she meets him, then her unemployed, angry, even violent husband, and, as played by James, a credibly tough, turbulent figure who sings sturdily enough but tends to scramble his lines and hasn’t the secret vulnerability the role requires.

Anyway, Billy falls in with the career criminal Jigger, who, as played by Graham MacDuff, looks like Bill Sikes and combines an insolent saunter with a weird, angular grin.

His is a nice performance, as is that of Alan Vicary as Mr Snow, a big, bashful, goofy figure who spends the subplot wooing and wedding Julie’s best friend and, in his boring respectability and get-ahead ethos, is clearly to be compared with poor, feckless Billy.

Won’t reveal more of the main plot, only say that, thanks to a botched murder, Billy ends up in (of all places) Heaven, a place forgivingly controlled by Ruritanian figures in white uniforms.

This allows him to look down on an Earth where, years having passed in a twinkling, he observes a daughter who threatens to become as much an unhappy outcast as himself. And here’s the evening’s highlight: a ballet, choreographed by Adam Cooper, in which Lindsey Wise’s tiny Louise expresses her need, loss and desperation, first by invading a sedate line of girl bathers, then dancing a torrid, dangerous duo with a contemptuous roughneck.

That’s terrific on the eye, as is much of William Dudley’s decor, which uses film projections to evoke everything from the prancing steeds on the carousel of the title to the sea, a port, a peaceful hillside.

We’re left with a reprise of the didactic but maddeningly infectious song that has been all too briefly delivered by the great Garrett as the local wise woman: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” And, yes, I felt like joining in.

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