When Company arrived in 1970 it was such a breakthrough musical that the sound of it – the bright, shiny, twangy, funky, synthesised newness of it – was so bound up with the score, as we first came to hear it, that letting go of those auditory memories was always going to be tough. All of which is another way of saying that I am not at all comfortable with Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s purpose-built arrangements here. I say “purpose-built” because this is a John Doyle production where the cast are called upon to provide, to be, their own orchestra. The recent Sweeney Todd was similarly conceived. But what was at first intriguing about Doyle’s early adventures with this concept is fast becoming something of a nervous tic.

The best thing about the sound of this new Company is the grand piano that anchors it. In the show, I gather, it’s almost a character – like Robert, at the centre of things. But that apart, any misgivings we may now have about the cheesiness of 1970 chic are as nothing compared to the tweeness, the paleness, of what is sometimes on offer here. I want Company brassier, sassier, edgier. I wouldn’t let a flute anywhere near it, leave alone a pizzicato violin. Still, I guess seeing the show might help you to hear it differently.

The cast sound strong, the numbers land well enough – though I pity anyone ever having to follow Elaine Stritch in “The ladies who lunch” – the sourness is genetically programmed into her voice; others, like Barbara Walsh here, have to manufacture it. And I’m not at all sure about the “Wicked Witch of the West” reverb added to her mounting demands to “rise” at the close. I am sure, though, that the emotional release of Raul Esparza’s Robert in the cathartic “Being Alive” is as thrilling as we’ve experienced in any recording. It’s by no means enough, though, to lure me away from the classic Original Broadway Cast.