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The appeal of La Cage aux Folles isn’t hard to fathom. This flamboyant farce manages the unusual feat of being both louche and touching. “It’s all about love,” says Albin, who in the guise of dramatically inept chanteuse Zaza has the crowds flocking to her lover Georges’s St Tropez nightclub. Of course, it’s not all about love — there are windmilling nipple tassles, grown men in vertiginous heels and some eye-watering dance moves — but Albin’s assessment has a kernel of truth: La Cage aux Folles promotes love in all its tones and hues.
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It’s a set-up straight out of Feydeau, to which Roger Allam and Philip Quast, taking over the leads from Graham Norton and Steven Pacey, bring tremendous verve. Physically and sartorially, Allam’s Albin resembles a cross between those two legendary Dames, Edna Everage and Barbara Cartland, yet he endows the part with not just high preposterousness, but also an unexpected nobility.
Quast, returning to the role of Georges that he had in the original production at the Menier Chocolate Factory, is by turns regal, charming, masculine and vulnerable. The chemistry between them is superb.
© Associated Newspapers Ltd.
