Sometimes all a show needs to hold it together is a strong central lead.

Hampshire youth theatre company, RicNic, has successfully staged an ambitious version of Broadway musical, Hello Dolly, to celebrate ten years of productions.

The musical, which had a film version starring Barbra Streisand and Michael Crawford, sees millionaire matchmaker, Dolly Levi, convince the miserly Horace Vandergelder (Jamie Holyer) to marry her instead of her recommendations.

She also manages to convince his two clerks Cornelius Hackl (Oliver Yeats-Brown) and Barnaby Tucker (Alex Lonsdale) to join her into travelling from Yonkers to New York where they meet widowed milliner Irene Molloy (Emma Humphrey) and her assistant.

Everyone involved in the production is aged 16 to 21 and well done to them for pulling off a tough production with lots of dancing numbers, the highlights being Motherhood March and Waiter’s Gallop.

Eliza Goodnight plays the titular heroine with an assured performance which lends buckets of confidence to a young cast and crew.

It is clear that when she is on stage the rest of the cast are more relaxed however Alex Lonsdale’s comic turn as Barnaby Tucker is also worth mentioning as is Jack Wallace’s athletic work as the outrageously efficient Rudolph Reisenweber.

Hello Dolly is on until Saturday, August 30.