Since its premiere in 2011, Matthew Bugg’s Miss Nightingale has toured five times, earned numerous five-star reviews, been named one of the Guardian’s Top 50 Shows of 2016 and been voted into BritishTheatre.com’s Top 100 Greatest Musicals of All Time. And now it’s finally coming back to London, with a two-month run at The Vaults from 30th March.

“Miss Nightingale is not your usual musical theatre show,” explains co-producer (with writer and composer Matthew Bugg), Tobias Oliver. “It’s set in World War Two London and challenges you to stand up for yourself, to fight for what you believe in and to resist prejudice in all forms. But it does this whilst entertaining the socks off you with a gripping narrative, tender love story and a load of absolutely brilliant songs, some of which are very, very naughty! One of my favourite reviews on our last tour said it was like, ‘Cabaret – as if written by Victoria Wood.’ I really love that description.”

It’s a long-awaited return to London for Miss Nightingale. “We’ve wanted to bring the show back to London for several years and have had a number of offers but they never felt quite right,” says Tobias. “We aren’t your typical West End show and we wanted to find the right venue. When the opportunity of transferring to The Vaults came up we jumped at it. It’s just perfect and almost feels as if it were made for Miss Nightingale, particularly as all the action in the show takes place in London. And I grew up in London and it’s where I started going to and falling in love with theatre, so performing the show here is always going to be extra special for me.”

What is it that makes The Vaults an ideal venue for the show? “It’s one of the most exciting venues in the capital right now,” says Tobias. “The fact that it feels like a cross between a theatre, an illegal drinking den, a subterranean jazz club and an air-raid shelter really couldn’t be better. Miss Nightingale is set in 1942 and much of the action centres around a smoky, underground cabaret club in the heart of war-torn London. The Vaults is absolutely the perfect fit for us – and the fact that you can hear the rumble of trains and other sounds of city life sets the scene perfectly of life carrying on regardless.”

The show’s changed a lot since it was first performed six years ago: “The 2011 production was a small-scale, chamber version of the show with a cast of just three. The response was fantastic, we were the best-selling late night show at the King’s Head and the show went on to tour the UK five times. However, back in 2011 as soon as we started performing the show in front of an audience we knew there were things we wanted to change and creases to be ironed out. There’s always a missing link in making theatre until you get it in front of an audience. This is why all big-budget shows have extensive development periods, a number of workshops, lengthy previews and out-of-town runs to smooth out the glitches and fix any problems.

“So we did some fairly hefty re-writes and added several new songs before we presented the show again in a full-scale production that toured in 2013. And we’ve continued to refine the show for each new outing. I guess anyone who saw the show back in 2011 is in for a bit of a surprise when they come to watch it at The Vaults, and it will be fascinating to see their reaction.”

In addition to his co-producing responsibilities, Tobias also has a small  role in the show as well as playing double bass – and he has nothing but praise for his fellow cast members. “Our cast are seriously talented. Not only do they act, sing and dance, but they also play all the musical instruments! And there is something that is incredibly exciting about working with actor-musicians who are at the very top of their game. We spend a lot of time looking out for and casting the right people. Our two leading men, Conor O’Kane and Nicholas Coutu-Langmead have such great chemistry on-stage and it’s really beautiful watching them fall in love every night.

“We also have a couple of new cast members, including the wonderful, award-winning singer-songwriter Tamar Broadbent making her musical theatre debut as ‘Miss Nightingale’. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to see her perform her comedy shows then you know she’s a star in the making.”

Though described in one of its many rave reviews as “raucously funny”, the show also has a serious point to make. “If anything the show seems more relevant than ever in 2017 what with recent events both in the UK and overseas,” says Tobias. “We don’t know what will happen to LGBT people’s rights after Brexit because much of the protection we have gained against discrimination came from the EU. The far right is on the rise across Europe with a particularly regressive, homophobic platform. Then there’s the frankly terrifying, virulently anti-LGBT agenda of the Trump government in the United States. It’s truly frightening. Now more than ever the arts and performance – satire in particular – seem to be powerful ways to offer an alternative to these messages of hate and division.”

Finally, what’s one thing Tobias wants audiences to know before we see the show – and one word he’d like us to use to describe it afterwards? “Blimey, that’s a tricky question to end with! I want people to know that Miss Nightingale has absolutely nothing to do with Florence Nightingale – it’s set in World War Two, not the Crimean War! And I’d like them to describe the show as ‘life-affirming’. Does a hyphenated word count?”

Miss Nightingale is at The Vaults from 30th March to 20th May.