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This cockle-warming camp classic begins with a flourish. You brush through a corridor of red velveteen swag, and seat yourself on a steep rake fronted by a couple of nightclub-style tables. The mood is witty. The lights are pretty (and, naturellement, pink). And the brass and piano overture is nostalgic perfection.
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But the showstoppers stop short at tassel-shaking affirmation and true manly tenderness, and Johnson's production too often makes this taffeta stuff feel a bit jaded. In Act 1, the dressing-room scenes are crammed awkwardly onto the side of the stage; some of the lines are funnier digested than delivered; and the energy between Philip Quast as Georges and Douglas Hodge as his transvestite husband Albin/Zaza is a tad listless and over-sophisticated. But it leaves them plenty of room to rise delicately in their romantic numbers, and more spiritedly in the farcical climax.
© Time Out Group Ltd
