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No matter how great an actor may be, there is, alas, no guarantee he can acquit himself adequately in a musical. Comedy can prove even harder: one remembers with a shudder Sir Ian McKellen's Widow Twanky at the Old Vic.
I have a high regard for Roger Allam, an associate artist of the RSC who has lately distinguished himself in a variety of West End plays, including Boeing Boeing. One still wondered if Terry Johnsonn, the director of the comedy musical La Cage aux Folles, hadn't made a colossal error of judgment in giving him the role of the ageing drag queen Albiin. I tried to imagine Allam in the part as I made my way to see this re-vamped production, and in all honesty couldn't. He is, quite apart from anything else, a stoutish chap with a deep baritone voice.
The moment he began to belt out the song 'Put a Little More Mascara on' - metamorphosing from Ena Sharples into Barbare Cartland - one realised, however, that he was about to make the part his own. Allam has a way of giving resonance to even the ropiest of lines and he made this show - a look at the lives of the gay owners of a nightclub on the French Riviera - look a lot less dated and patronising than it actually is. He achieves, too, a great chemistry with his leading man, Philip Quast.
© Telegraph Group Limited
