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They really do do it better on Broadway than anywhere else, and they really do do it better at the Menier than most other places.
'It' is the Broadway musical, exemplified here by Jerry Herman's 1982 hit (based on the 1978 French film). It's big and brassy, light and fluffy - machine-made, perhaps, but a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
And, as is rapidly becoming habitual, this small off-West End theatre delivers a production of energy, polish and imagination that belies a budget that would barely pay for tea breaks in the West End.
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Philip Quast plays the more masculine Georges with a warm and attractive mix of the butch, the tender and the broadly comic, while Douglas Hodge insightfully makes Albin the sadly but bravely ageing diva first, and the effete man only secondarily.
