Sometimes “classics” are best left in the past. That was the conclusion of the gentleman sitting next to me, when we chatted at the interval of The Pajama Game. In some respects I agreed with him, but in others I did not. The Pajama Game is a musical, described by one of its characters as being “about capital and labour.” Well, sort of. It’s a light-as-air concoction, in which management and a union face off, with the two romantic protagonists, Babe and Sid, on opposite sides of the conflict.

Happily, the singing and dancing were fantastic, particularly Dan Burton as Sid (he is the understudy and it was great to see him in the main role). That said, however, there was not an enormous amount of chemistry between him and Joanna Riding as Babe. I would have liked to have seen whether that was present with Michael Xavier in the role. But they gamely did their best, and worked together very well. I also very much enjoyed Gary Wilmot as Hinesy (with one enormous exception that we will come to later) and Alexis Owen-Hobbs was a delightful Gladys.

The songs are the real stars of this show. “Hey There,” “Once-a-year Day,” “Hernando’s Hideaway,” and “There Once Was a Man” are deservedly classics. They were sung well here by a uniformly strong cast. The plot, however, is a bit silly, and the denouement falls somewhat flat, with one side giving in due to fear of exposure, rather than any outcome of negotiation.

But I’m afraid my dislike of this production is for a more serious reason. I understand that there are no First Nations people in the UK, and that actors and directors in London have probably never been exposed to them. However, there is really no excuse, in modern London, for having the character of Hinesy dress up like a dime store Indian during the knife-throwing scene, and make a fool of himself pretending to “Haw” and dance around in an “Indian” manner. It may have been in the original script, I don’t know, but it certainly has no place in 2014. It could easily have been changed, the only casualty being a stupid joke about “savages.” I also cringed slightly during the Hernando’s Hideaway scene, with the characters all wearing Mexican hats, but that wasn’t as bad and was necessary for the plot.

In the end, I think that if classic musicals are going to be revived in the modern era, they have to be carefully reviewed to ensure that the casual racism of the past is no longer present. This is not the fault of the cast, who did a great job, but those in charge need to think about it a little harder.