A large-scale musical works triumphantly in the cosy Minerva space.

On the face of it, Funny Girl is riddled with musical-theatre cliches: the American showbiz setting, the girl who makes it to the top against all odds, the tears of the clown, the determination that the show must go on.

Yet all that is transformed into something individual in Angus Jackson's production. It utilises the intimacy of the space to make the story deeply personal, something in which the audience becomes a genuine stakeholder.

Of course the musical is not the film and Samantha Spiro's Fanny Brice is not Barbra Streisand's.

But Ms Spiro could hardly be surpassed.

She catches the gawky nature of the girl who describes herself as the only bagel on a plate full of onion rolls.

She is outrageously, laugh-out-loud comic when she dances with what appears to be a bun in the oven – an inevitable metaphor in the circumstances – and in her routine as a tiny, moustachioed soldier among a leggy ensemble.

Ms Spiro rises from deliberately lowly beginnings to emotional heights in the show's biggest number, Don't Rain On My Parade.

Every unladylike shake of her backside, every quirk of facial expression, every swoop of her speaking voice seem to be ingrained in the character rather than imposed from without.

And, crucially, the delivery of a wisecrack in response to a compliment establishes her fragility.

Better still, Fanny is seen very clearly as the daughter of her doughty Jewish momma, played with glorious timing and insight by Sheila Steafel. It is a mystery how she manages to play simultaneously deadpan and with a flourish, but she does.

Mark Umbers is appropriately too good to be true as the man who sweeps Fanny off her feet.

And band, choreography and design all attain Chichester's usual high standards – creating another hit, for sure.

MIKE ALLEN