THIS is a stunning production of Stephen Sondheim and June Styne’s musical Gypsy.

Based very loosely on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the one-time “Queen of Burlesque,” the show follows Gypsy’s mum Rose as she drags her kids, Louise and June, from state to state with their dreadful vaudeville act.

Rose is determined to make 10-year-old June a star. But eventually it’s the neglected older sister, Louise, who succeeds.

Like most of Sondheim’s work, Gypsy is packed with delicious songs that are laced with extremely funny and often savagely biting lyrics. Jo Davies’s deft direction is right on the button as she skilfully keeps the show zipping along, while Andrew Wright does a great job in shaping  Jerome Robbins’s original choreography  to fit the Exchange’s compact round space.

Yet it’s the fabulous ensemble cast that make this such a joyful show. Dale Rapley is tremendous as Herbie, the downbeat theatrical agent and Rose’s lover, who realises  too late that Rose will never marry him — there’ll always be one more show.

The transformation from Louise into Gypsy is wonderfully realised by the excellent Melissa James, emerging from the shadows of her ‘”more talented” sister to blossom into the most successful striptease artist in the world.

There are superb cameos from Suzie Chard, Rebecca Thornhill and Kate O’Donnell as three seasoned troupers explaining the business to a naive, awestruck Louise. Yet it is Ria Jones who stands out as a superlative Rose — ballsy, funny, tender, vulnerable and with a voice to die for.

Her final song is achingly heartbreaking and I doubt there will be a better leading performance in a musical for some time to come.

A beautifully uplifting evening and no matter what is going on in the world, for three hours at least, “everything is coming up roses,” as the song has it.  

Runs until January 25, box office: royalexchange.co.uk