La Cage Aux Folles

The Menier Chocolate Factory (An incredible venue that punches so far above its weight, it's insane) has produced a variety of brilliant shows but "La Cage Aux Folles" may well be the best yet. I felt curiously compelled to wait and see it with Graham Norton who takes over the role of Albin in the New Year but after catching a bit of Douglas Hodge's performance on the Royal Variety Show (thank you BBC iPlayer and then Youtube) it didn't take me long to find an opportunity to grab a ticket. It was just my luck to time it so Hodge had fallen ill. Whatsmore, to potentially make matters worse the understudy had fallen ill as well. Roll on the second cover, Robert Maskell. Sonia Friedman, the powerhouse producer, even went so far as to give a little speech apologising but there wasn't a whole lot of point. The man was brilliant (albeit maybe not as brilliant as Hodge is in the video above). There did appear to be one too few Cagelle which was a little odd, maybe I was just in a charitable mood, but somehow it didn't matter. It's a testament to the quality of this production that despite these various body blows it still emerged as one of the finest bits of theatre I've seen all year.

It isn't a musical I've come across much before, the film being perhaps more famous than the musical. "I am what I am" is suitably famous but entirely out of context (I didn't even know it was a gay anthem) and it's a shockingly downbeat moment when compared to the feel of most performances. This is a fairly streamlined production (after all it emerged from a tiny, tiny venue) but the reduced orchestration gives the music a spiky feeling I really liked, lacking epic grandeur but brisk and exciting. The chreography is superb from start to finish. I find all the transvestite cabaret stuff a little bit creepy but the manner in which it's pulled off is astonishing, it's hard to believe all the incredibly flexible moves are being done by men. The designs are simple but hugely effective, the hysterically overdone cabaret sets nail the feel of the piece. All in all it's a pretty flawless production balancing humour with a heady dose of pathos adding up to wonderfully entertaining evening with a serious message (although that message has greatly diminished since the piece's premiere in the eighties)

I can't say I wasn't massively disappointed when I saw the replacement list but I rapidly realised it wasn't actually so awful. Maskell might be new at this role but he's a talented performer and Albin is a gift of a part for anyone prepared to throw themselves at it with gusto. If I'd had no idea this was an understudy performance (an understudies' first performance in fact) I'd never have guessed and I can't say much better than that. Denis Lawson (the regularly billed Georges) has an easy, attractive voice and is a natural comedian. He gets most of the best songs (with the exception of "I Am What I Am" which goes to Albin) and delivers them with such musicality and charm as to make his performance irresistable. The rest of the cast were on top form throughout and it's hard to pick individuals out but Jason Pennycooke's hysterical butler/maid Jacob went down an absolute storm.

Quite simply one of the best shows I've seen this year. It has a very similar feel and message to "Hairspray" but does it all to a much higher standard. A great cast, so great even the second understudy is brilliant, and a inventive production add up to an evening that I'm struggling to find faults in. One of the last shows I'll see this year and without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best.