La Cage Aux Folles

Playing at the Playhouse Theatre, La Cage has been rejuvenated and rediscovered in this fantastic revival of the seminal show by Terry Johnson.

Following the story of Georges and Albin, owners of the La Cage Aux Folles drag bar and happily coupled up for many years, the audience is shown the disruption caused when George’s son, Jean-Michael, brings home his fiancé Anne, whose parents are a moral crusader and a Republican politician. Thus the stage is set for a wonderfully comic, yet deeply moving look, at what family really means and, the most important message of the show, to be proud of whom we are.

Such a show is clearly going to be of interest to the gay community, being, as it is, a seminal work in the timeline of their struggle for equality, yet this is a show that everyone should see. It will challenge your prejudices, make you think differently about the world of Drag and, ultimately, make you see that discrimination is no more of a facade than makeup and glitter is. You will probably have heard the biggest number in the show “I am what I am” sung many times before, by the likes of Shirley Bassey and many others, but the song is not as flamboyant as it has been morphed into by popular culture. Here, as taken on wonderfully by the obscenely talented Douglas Hodge, it is a heart-wrenching, defiant stand to be who one wants to be, marked at the end by the symbolic removal of the lead characters wig. Much of the audience is often in tears as this number draws to a close.

Graham Norton is currently bringing some star power to the show, playing the role of Albin until April. The musical has been setting the critical world alight as well, being nominated for 7 Olivier Awards and winning the Critics Circle Award for Best Musical 2009. Originally staged in the intimate setting of the Chocolate Factory, the plays success has outgrown such a venue and it is now a much bigger venue has had to be found. Debates continue as to the contemporary pertinence of this show, one critic believing that the gay community is now just as likely to want to sing “ I am what you are” as much as “I am what I am”, yet this show remains vital viewing for everybody.