IT was a case of ‘The show must go on’ when The Hudsucker Proxy finally opened at Nuffield Theatre after a week’s delay.

Two of the eight cast members had needed hospital treatment following ‘an incident’ that occurred at the final dress rehearsal.

Their parts were taken by two other actors – one being the play’s co-director Simon Dormandy who is also responsible for adapting the Coen Brothers romantic comedy film for the stage.

Despite the set-backs this ambitious co-production between the Nuffield and Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre is association with Comomplicitie went without a hitch on press night.

The play – presented for the first time in theatre history here in Southampton, strives to be funny but is also bleak and foreboding in its portrayal of a capitalistic, work-crazed world.

It is basically a story about time, imagination, love and work in a topsy-turvy world where nothing quite goes to plan.

After the suicide of business founder and president of Hudsucker Industries, Waring Hudsucker, the company’s ruthless board hatch a plan to make millions.

They believe that by employing deluded, naive, highly enthusiastic business graduate Norville Barnes ( Joseph Timms) as their new president they can depress their company's stock shares before buying them for themselves.

And with the apparently hair-brained Norville believing he can reinvent the hula hoop he seems the perfect clown for the media exposure they need.

The typically black comedy includes classic lines like: "He [Waring Hudsucker] built this company up with his bare hands: every step he took was a step up."

To which another employee says: "Except the last one!"...it comes just after he has jumped 45 floors.

But what I enjoyed most about this production was the staging. Key elements are taken from a scene and the audience's imagination fills in the gaps. This process can be highly amusing.

The suicide at the beginning, for example, involves cast members holding up a large window frame, a video projection of light whooshing past at high speed, the actor lying on a stool and flailing ...all followed by a sudden projection of red, like splattered blood!

The main set is the office with its floor to ceiling filing cabinets. The action cleverly switches outside as projections on these transform them into skyscrapers.

A big industrial clock is ever present in the workplace where the motto is The Future is Now and the cogs of a machine/the working of a watch are projected in grimy black and white.

It is all very thought provoking.

The physical comedy is very clever too although I do feel the play needed a little more pace to bring the comic timing up to speed. I suspect this will come as the play evolves.

The hard-working company of eight gave fine performances- despite the upheaval of cast changes.

Joseph Timms was splendid at Norville and Sinead Matthews brilliant as the straight-talking New York hack.