Living up to the cha-cha days is not that difficult for “Beauty World.” After all, it is a cabaret musical set in the swinging 1960s.

Having concluded its run from Jan. 03 to 19, W!ld Rice’s latest rendition of the famous musical celebrated its fourth staging and 20^th anniversary by attracting more than 20,000 audiences to the Esplanade Theatre.

Eager to seduce with its old world charm, its revival was set to a tune of $2.2 million. From the moment the curtains were raised to reveal the elaborate stage, it was not hard to see where the money was spent.

The sprawling two-tiered set was created by distinguished Canadian set designer, John C. Dinning. His eye for details and authenticity lent a magical touch to the production.

Much sought after costume designer, Moe Kassim, who designed the fancy attires in Royston Tan’s “881,” produced intricate costumes brimming with creativity.

However, some actors were unable to live up to these extravagant visuals. Their performance varied greatly, especially since the veterans and fresh faces are sized up together on the same stage.

Among those who shone were theatre veterans Irene Ang, as the dialect-spouting cabaret maid Wan Choo, and Neo Swee Lin as Mummy, the domineering, yet sentimental matriarch of the cabaret.

Theatre fresh face Elena Wang also put up a strong performance as the virginal and ignorant Ivy. A musical theatre graduate of LaSalle College of Arts, her pure and clear singing voice was filled with soulful sincerity and aplomb.

However, Project Superstar II champion Daren Tan, who played the cabaret bouncer Ah Hock, paled in comparison.

This is Tan’s first English language theatrical stint and he was clearly out of his comfort zone. His pop voice was thin and unable to fill the theatre entirely and his acting was caricatured and stiff.

The musical, set in the 1960s, tells the story of Ivy, a small town girl relying on only a Beauty World jade pendent to guide her search for her long-lost father.

Along the way, Ah Hock falls in love with her while the jealous old-time cabaret girl, Lu Lu, schemes against the younger and prettier Ivy

This boy-meets-girl theme gives “Beauty World” its evergreen quality.

Daniel Teo, a second-year communications and new media student, said, “It is easy to relate to the show as there is always an Ivy in all of us. Her journey is everyone’s journey of self-discovery.”

Another winning tweak to Beauty World was the use of the chorus.

Made out of 20 dancers playing cabaret girls to customers, the chorus was put to good and clever use. Instead of being in the background in previous productions, they were literally given a voice this time.

This reviewer is particularly fond of the scene where Ivy dons a black cat suit to search through Mummy’s drawers to attempt to find out the truth about her father.

The chorus lent their help by holding their torch lights and shining it on her, providing the scene with diegetical light.

However, the show suffered in some aspects.

The two-and-a-half-hour performance was bogged down by a lengthy first half and a hurried second half with the performance closing in an abrupt manner.

Teo described it as having “too much ha-ha-ha in the cha-cha-cha,” as most of the sincere scenes were unduly undermined by the inappropriate use of the chorus to garner laughs instead of sympathy.

Grace Khoo, a third-year theatre studies major who has written a research paper on Beauty World, said “The key about Beauty World is not to see it seriously. Some people might find it too campy but I saw ‘Beauty World’ in a celebratory light. It was over the top but Beauty World is over the top. It’s like fireworks and Chingay.”

It is a fact that “Beauty World” borrowed heavily from the Cantonese dramas of the 1960s.

It was even made for television as it was previously performed for the President’s Star Charity in 1998. Evelyn Tan played the character, Ivy, and Sharon Au was the licentious Lu Lu.

This sealed its mass popularity with Singaporeans.

Khoo said, “Beauty World is iconic in the sense that, not only for the fictional characters, it is as much an escape for the audience, where we can let our imagination go wild and take in the pleasure of an exciting, kitsch and phantasmagorical world.”