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It ought not to work. Beyond its two justifiably famous showstoppers, Jerry Herman's score is sweet but humdrum. And although the now dated book has dramatic highpoints, underwritten scenes veer between the schematic and the sentimental. Yet two magical things have transformed La Cage aux Folles. The first is the smart idea of mounting a show set in a nightclub in the Menier Chocolate Factory, a setting so intimate it genuinely feels like a boite. The second is Douglas Hodge's sensational performance as Albin.
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The danger with intimate revivals, however, is that the script is given a scrutiny it cannot withstand. Auds here have to take most of the relationships on trust because the writing is so skimpy.
Philip Quast's Georges suffers the most. When singing, his lustrous baritone is ideally persuasive but Johnson's direction leads him to play Albin's more gentlemanly partner so straight -- in every sense -- that the character vanishes, leaving him looking strained and stranded.
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