Right. Ahem. Let’s get started. I have been to see the current production of La Cage aux Folles at the Playhouse Theatre in London’s glittering West End seven times in the last three months. That’s an average of 0.583 times per week. My friends and family are worried that I am turning into one of those women who goes to see a show every night, sitting the same seat and wearing the t-shirt (and matching satin bomber jacket, where available). She doesn’t just know the words to all the songs, but recites the dialogue too, then spends ages after the show discussing the performances, inappropriately using the actors’ first names and outlining in meticulous detail every tiny difference from the last 56 times she saw it. I am not one of those women. I go to the theatre a lot, but rarely see anything more than once. Attempts to explain to my concerned acquaintances what it is about this show that keeps me coming back have so far failed to convince, so this is my justification.
The thing I love most about La Cage is the feeling it leaves you with when you step out of the theatre. If Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room was theatrical Viagra, then this is theatrical Prozac. I emerge every time feeling warm and fuzzy and with a stupid great grin on my stupid great face. The show is very funny, there are some cracking tunes and spectacular dancing, but the main reason for this warmth and fuzziness is the relationship between the show’s two central characters, Albin and Georges, a relationship which has turned this jaded old cynic into a sentimental old fool.
The perfect couple
This is entirely due to the chemistry between the two leads, Roger Allam and Philip Quast, who are perfectly matched physically and vocally and make an extremely convincing middle-aged couple. The thing about casting proper ac-tors to play these roles (with no disrespect to anyone who has done it before or will do in the future) is that the relationship is completely believable – it’s the little glances, gestures and touches, such as the linking of their little fingers during “Song on the Sand” and Albin’s response to Georges’ attempts to demonstrate masculinity, which make you feel that you are watching two people in love. The moment at the very end when the complications of the plot are resolved, all the spangles, beads and feathers are swept away and they kiss is so moving that I am welling up just thinking about it.
However, my love affair with La Cage ends here and now. Allam and Quast’s last performance was on Saturday and the new leads take over tonight. I probably won’t see it again as, for me, Roger Allam will always be Albin and I just can’t imagine John Barrowman in the role. But I will remember the summer of La Cage with fondness as I stroll along humming “The Best of Times”…
