It's 1949, a poor but aspiring young writer is roped into aiding an aging silent film diva's ambitions for a return to the silver screen – and ends up being sucked into much more than that.

'The world is full of Joes and Normas.
Older woman
Very well-to-do meets
Younger man
A standard cue
For two mechanical performers.'

In Oxford Operatic Society's production of this rarely performed musical, Joe is excellently portrayed by Guy Grimsley. In a literally breath-taking performance, Joe appears in virtually every scene, including all of the long first act. Grimsley does justice to the role with a powerful, pure voice and a very believable performance as the failing young screenwriter, disgusted and yet ensnared by Hollywood.

Joe's contrast, Betty, is deemed young and naïve as she does not share his cynicism – but in Megan Asano's portrayal she nevertheless becomes a plausible challenge to match Joe's persona. Susanne Hodgson portrays Norma's diva tantrums and frightened vulnerability with great feeling. Her doting butler, Max, emerges as another surprise main character, carried by Stephen Pascoe's booming voice.

Oxford is blessed with an abundance of amateur and student dramatic ensembles, which provides the opportunity to see hidden gems like this one as well as the standard box-office hits. Oxford Operatic Society has an impressively large and very mixed age-wise cast, so that when on stage in full force, it provides a highly convincing representation of the intimidating, bustling business of Hollywood.

The costumes reinforce the theme of the show, with Norma's world of elegant black and white over against the colourful splendour of the Hollywood that dethroned her at the dawn of the talkies.

The musical is based on a 1950 film noir, the making of which was almost as incredible a Hollywood story as the film itself. When the musical was written in the 1990s, it was far from the first attempt to adapt the film into a musical – but all previous endeavours had stalled until Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote his opera-like score, just as the original film's director Billy Wilder had wanted it. Lloyd Webber unavoidably gets billed first on the show's poster, but deservedly so. While this is one of his less well-known musicals, the tunes are no less catchy than those of perennial favourites like Phantom, a story with similarly complex themes and correspondingly complex songs.

The show becomes a comment on the problems of celebrity culture, the angsty catch that both formerly up-and-coming Joe and faded star Norma are trapped in, aptly put (and rhythmically underpinned) in the theme song: 'Once you've won, you have to go on winning.'

It is rarely this evident that both during the interval and on leaving the audience was abuzz with analyses of the plot and the performance. I personally found myself humming the tunes many hours later.