Running in Circles: 'Chariots of Fire' in London Whoosh. There's nothing like an actor's pumping legs to stir up a breeze on a summer night. Make that legions of actors" legs, running and running and running in circles through (and at eye level with) much of the audience at the Gielgud Theater, where "Chariots of Fire" is now in residence. I was seated next to one of the (oh, what should I call it?) runways of the circular, multi-part stage that has been created for this amiable adaptation of the 1981 Oscar-winning movie about odds-beating British athletes at the 1924 Olympics. It's rather refreshing how much wind these lads manage to generate. They obviate the necessity of using one's program as a fan. Should the West End experience a power failure this summer, it's reassuring to know that the Gielgud has a human equivalent to air-conditioning. Of course, any show that features a hard-fought sporting event as its climax should have suspense. And "Chariots of Fire" does generate some. Not about who's going to win, but about the proximity of the sprinting actors to the audience. What if one of them falls and lands on a little old lady or a child? What if some prankish or disgruntled theatergoer decides to poke his umbrella onstage to trip up a runner? Don't think it didn't cross my mind. But no, everyone, onstage and off, behaved honorably, recalling a time when spectators wore suits to sporting events and competitors were gentlemen. No one in my vicinity had a torso painted like the Union Jack, or shouted obscenities at non-British team members. And the audience refrained from doing "the wave" to show its support, though it did clap along happily in time to a couple of the jaunty musical numbers (by Gilbert and Sullivan, not Vangelis). As you may have inferred, "Chariots of Fire" - which as a movie both reflected on a past British triumph and brought new glory to a depressed domestic film industry - has been translated to the stage with dignity. The show's arrival in the West End has been timed to coincide with the 2012 Olympics in London. It offers a low-stress, civilized alternative to schlepping out to an overcrowded, tight-security stadium in Hackney, where there's no guarantee that your guy or gal will win, anyway. Aside from a fear of falling actors, there's not much about this "Chariots" to raise the adrenaline. Watching it is like looking at an animated commemorative stamp for a couple of hours. It's all perfectly pleasant and not terribly exciting. Admittedly, it is a challenge, turning a movie centered on a race into a work of theater, and it has been met with ingenuity. The director Edward Hall - who is known as the leader of the all-male, kinetically boisterous Propeller troupe - has provided a more stately, picturesque physicality for "Chariots." In following the parallel paths of two very different Britons to the Olympics in Paris, this production (designed by Miriam Buether) mixes dramatic dialogue, music-hall-style sequences and statuesque posing, as well as a whole lot of running in circles. I found myself thinking of the Caucus Race in "Alice in Wonderland." The show is especially inventive in seeming to freeze and splinter time to delay revelations and to suggest what's going on in the heads of characters under the starter gun. As in the film, the fact-based plot compares and contrasts the style and motives of two central, Olympics-bound figures: Harold Abrahams (James McArdle), a Cambridge University student suffering the slings of British anti-Semitism, and Eric Liddell (Jack Lowden), a pious Scotsman bound for the ministry. One is in it for himself; the other is in it for God. Guess which one is decreed, in no uncertain terms, to be the better man? I haven't seen the film in a while, but I don't remember it stating its thesis quite so baldly. The hot young playwright Mike Bartlett has remained true to the form and essence of Colin Welland's screenplay. But somehow classic, inspirational sports-flick lines about being driven to win sound even more clichéd when delivered resonantly through clenched teeth on a stage. The actors - who include Savannah Stevenson and Natasha Broomfield as the women in our heroes" lives and Nicholas Woodeson as a coach - speak with crispness and conviction and look very attractive in the period costumes by Michael Howells. Vangelis's propulsive film music, which has been much played and parodied during the past 30 years, is used sparingly. "Chariots" offers enough rhythmic variety to forestall any sense that it's just running in place. All things considered, it could have been much worse. Another, more literal-minded screen-to-stage show has become a big hit at the Palace Theater. Once the longtime home to "Les Miserables," the Palace is now packin" "em in with "Singin" in the Rain," based on the great 1952 movie musical about the coming of sound to Hollywood in the 1920s. Directed by Jonathan Church, with attractive choreography by Andrew Wright, this is mostly a dutiful scene-by-scene re-creation of its prototype. Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who wrote the original screenplay, are given prominent billing, and no other writer is credited. The sweet, satiric joy and ebullience that infused the film isn't much in evidence, and it all starts to feel like a super-expensive karaoke act. In the Gene Kelly role, Adam Cooper, who made a sensation as the Swan Prince in Matthew Bourne's revisionist "Swan Lake" in 1995, dances gracefully (and sings mostly on-key) but seems oddly disengaged. Anyway, the real star of this "Singin" in the Rain" is its title character. Yes, indoor rain falls copiously for the first and second act finales. The umbrella-waving dancers kick up the accumulated water, splashing the audience members near the stage, who squeal like delighted riders on a log flume. I would have thought Londoners would have had enough of rain, especially this season. But I guess you can't underestimate the appeal of simulating the familiar. Anyone up for doing a stage version of John Carpenter's horror movie "The Fog"?