50 Favourite Musicals: 41: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1983) (Jerry Herman)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1983, Palace Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1986, London Palladium

Productions seen: four

Score: Jerry Herman
Book: Harvey Fierstein

Plot:  Georges and Albin, a middle-aged, long-term gay couple who run a Riviera drag club, find their public and private worlds clash when Georges' son falls in love with the daughter of a homophobic politician who wants to close the area's gay clubs.

Five memorable numbers: I AM WHAT I AM, SONG ON THE SAND, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE, THE BEST OF TIMES, LOOK OVER THERE

The 1984 Tony Awards for musicals were seen as a clash between tradition and modernity as the two most obvious nominees were Jerry Herman's musical comedy LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and Stephen Sondheim's more austere SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE.  SUNDAY was to lose out - apart from the Design and Lighting awards - to the LA CAGE juggernaut.  When Herman scurried onstage to receive the Best Score award he crowed that it put paid to the rumour that "the simple, hummable show tune was no longer welcome on Broadway" - a not-so-subtle dig at Sondheim.  That certainly coloured my opinion of the show when I saw it's UK premiere at the London Palladium although I certainly enjoyed the delightful starring performances of George Hearn (recreating his Best Actor Tony-winning role as the flamboyant Albin) and Denis Quilley, as well as the fantastic drag chorus 'Les Cagelles' which spotlit performers like Scott St. Martyn as Chantal and Andy Norman as Hanna.   That production famously closed early citing it's failure on the public worry of AIDS; I never bought that reason as the show ran on Broadway for four years - I still suspect that the Palladium was just the wrong house for it.  It was only when I saw Terry Johnson's more intimate - alright, smaller - revival at the Menier then also when it transferred to the Playhouse - that the show's charm really showed.  It's sheer relentless optimistic tone can eventually be wearing - the second act really doesn't know where to go - but with the right performers, Fierstein's book can still make you laugh and Herman's self-referencing score can still charm.  I last saw the show when the Menier production transferred to Broadway and Harvey Fierstein played Albin.  Despite LA CAGE's longevity - the only Broadway musical to win Tonys for Best Musical and then Best Musical Revival for each of it's two subsequent incarnations - Jerry Herman has never written another original musical.  And where do I stand on the LA CAGE versus SUNDAY face-off?  Watch this space...

There is fair amount of video on LA CAGE but here is Denis Quilley from 1986 on the stage of the London Palladium introducing 'Les Cagelles' for the great opening number "We Are What We Are" - I first saw the show on a pro's matinee with West End Legend Nicola Blackman and I still remember the sheer excitement of watching this for the first time...

DEAD FUNNY at the Vaudeville Theatre - Black comedy...

I had been kicking myself that I missed seeing Terry Johnson's play DEAD FUNNY in 1994 at the Vaudeville Theatre when it starred David Haig and Zoe Wanamaker, so I was thrilled to hear that it was being revived at the same theatre.

The revival is directed by Johnson himself - who is known as much for being a director these days as a writer - and, interestingly, is now cast with tv comedy performers over more established stage actors. It probably makes more sense for the box-office but it did lead to some fairly thin performances dotted around the five-strong cast.

Johnson's play in retrospect plays a little like the classic comedy of embarrassment ABIGAIL'S PARTY with an uneasy social gathering exposing the fragile relationships of both hosts and guests.  That it misses the exquisite agony of ABIGAIL is unsurprising but it has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and has it's own minor moments of insight.

Eleanor and Richard are a middle-class, professional couple but Eleanor is quietly - and not-so-quietly at times - desperate to have a child.  To paraphrase Big Mama in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, when a marriage goes on the rocks the rocks can be found in the bed and that's what has happened to Eleanor and Richard.  Eleanor has been seeing a relationship councillor and attempts to engage him in early evening sexual therapy which Richard takes part in with all the enthusiasm of a patient being operated on without anesthetic.

Eleanor is also coming to the end of her tether with Richard's main joy in life, being the chairman of a small appreciation society for British comedians.  She is finding it increasingly easy to ridicule his passion (the only passion he shows her) and is openly tart to his friends.  The society is struggling for members due to a similar group attracting more fans but Richard seems to enjoy being looked up to by Brian, a lonely man now his mother has died, and Nick and Lisa, a young married couple facing their own problems dealing with a new baby - another thorn in Eleanor's side.

20th April 1992 - Gauche Brian interrupts the couple's sex therapy session - much to Richard's *ahem* relief - but he has come to break the news that Benny Hill has died.  Richard throws a wake to mourn the comedian and with Katherine spitting crushing observations from the sidelines, the group reminisce about the comedians that mean so much to them and their feelings of loss when one of their idols die.

Things take a turn for the worse when Katherine and Nick slowly begins to realize that, far from being impotent, Richard has been having an affair with Lisa which leads to violent recriminations and fighting which ironically feature custard pies and a very large bowl of trifle.  Even Brian's emotional coming-out declaration can not stop the rot finally being revealed in Eleanor and Richard's life together.

For all it's sexual frankness DEAD FUNNY feels oddly cosy and, after the blazing arguments and recriminations, it ends with two friends laughing together at the daftness of life and while it's good to end on a positive note, you cannot help but feel that Johnson has rather pulled back at the last minute.

The afore-mentioned thinness in performance showed up most strongly with Katherine Parkinson and Rufus Jones as Eleanor and Richard.  Parkinson, although a strong presence on stage, was too harsh in her caustic delivery; when she had to touch the heart to really show Eleanor's despair it seemed beyond her, while Jones' bland Teflon performance left this important character a cypher - not even his full frontal scene stayed in the memory.

However there was depth galore in the wonderful Steve Pemberton as Brian, socially awkward and always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He slowly moved the character from a bumbling comic staple - the gormless friend - to a man who was grieving for the only comfort he ever knew and the uncertainty in his future, while still being very funny.

I also liked Ralf Little as Nick, the cuckolded friend who goes from Max Miller impressions to angry confrontation in the blink of an eye.  He has always been a subtle performer and he was very good here, one of his rare ventures onto stage.  He was well partnered by Emily Berrington as the duplicitous Lisa.

Terry Johnson has directed his play well, switching the mood from comedy to drama effortlessly.  There are precious few comedies on in the West End now and surely laughs are needed now more than ever so I would recommend it, catch it at the Vaudeville until 4th February.

MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS at Noel Coward Theatre - tits but no balls

It's interesting that theatre turns so often to the "little British film" for new musicals: the female footballers of BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, the Geordie ballet dancer BILLY ELLIOTT, the factory workers making high heels for drag queens in KINKY BOOTS, the WI ladies in CALENDAR GIRLS, the unemployed strippers in THE FULL MONTY, the colliery band in BRASSED OFF, the striking factory girls of MADE IN DAGENHAM - there is even talk that the gay activists of PRIDE might be musicalised.

These films all follow the same template of an individual or friends chasing a dream or fighting injustice which nearly stumbles at the final hurdle only to triumph in the end.  They are all reasonably successful films which have a built-in audience awareness and a collection of 'lovable' characters the audience can bond with.  It doesn't always work - hello MADE IN DAGENHAM and FULL MONTY!  And now we have another show based on a similar "Little British film" about an individual chasing a dream...

Bob Hoskins co-produced and co-starred in the 2005 film with Judi Dench as the indefatigable Mrs Henderson who owned the Windmill Theatre in the 1930s and who hit upon the idea of mixing low comedy and high nudity - the showgirls were frozen in non-moving tableaux and the theatre famously never closed during the air raids of World War II.  And now Terry Johnson has adapted and directed it for the stage.

Constant Reader I left the theatre with one thought on my mind - why??  I had sat through the show with a real bafflement as at no point during it did I ever feel the need for this show to be musicalised at all.  Yes it has pastiche numbers for the 'onstage' scenes but the score is weakly malnourished and feels horribly old-fashioned mostly due to the shocking unoriginality of Don Black's lyrics - whatever originality he might have once had has long since dribbled out of his nib.

In his programme notes Terry Johnson says that MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS gave him ample scope to explore favourite themes including the male gaze and female empowerment.  Well I am sure those themes were mentioned on the first day of rehearsals but there is nothing in the finished article that strikes you as original or even that interesting.  His script simply plays out the film's plot - no insight, no real exploration of the wartime experience... it all just slides by like a film watched with the sound turned off.

The production felt bland and coy - for a show that's about nakedness it's awfully tame and toothless.  In fact the whole production: book, music and performances felt like it could easily have been teleported from the late 50s or early 60s.  It's remarkable that a new production can feel like a museum piece in 2015 (it opened at the Theatre Royal Bath last year).

Tracie Bennett gives a grating performance as the garrulous Mrs Henderson, over-pitched, shallow and lacking in any charm at all.  Ian Bartholomew has been an asset to many a musical but here as Vivian Van Damme, the manager of the Windmill, he sings and dances up a storm but without a single bead of charisma so it feels like his hang-dog facial expression and baggy suit are all there is to him.

Emma Williams is personable as Maureen the tea-girl-cum-main showgirl but her relentless perkiness soon feels like you are being battered to death with a rolled-up copy of Bunty and the rest of the cast play various stereotypes without troubling one's interest too much.  Terry Johnson's inoffensive piffle has even changed the film's plot so the character of Maureen is not killed in an air raid, her ex-stage hand boyfriend goes off to war instead and is conveniently killed so Williams can sing an interminable eleven o'clock number with Mrs Henderson about how "If Mountains Were Easy To Climb"... yes, you guessed, the next line ends with 'time'.

To paraphrase John Betjeman "Come friendly bombs and fall on the Noel Coward Theatre"

The State of FINGS

 
This year marks the centinery of visionary theatre director Joan Littlewood's birth and Theatre Royal Stratford East are celebrating by staging revivals of two of her iconic shows, both directed by Terry Johnson.  A few months ago I saw the affecting but slightly under-powered OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR but now he is on surer ground with a punchy and rollicking production of Lionel Bart and Frank Norman's FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE.  As with OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR it was so exciting to see these on the stage where they were created by Littlewood.

In 1958 Frank Norman submitted his first play to Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at Stratford East. She thought his story of Soho crooks and prostitutes - drawn from a milieu that ex-con Norman knew all too well - would be more effective with songs from a previous collaborator Lionel Bart, mainly known as a pop song writer, who had recently written the score for his first musical LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS. The show was a huge success, transferring to the Garrick where it ran for 886 performances and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.  By the way, the choreographer for the production was Jean Newlove, pregnant at the time with her daughter Kirsty MacColl.

The West End cast - recorded 'live' on the album - was one I would now kill to see: Glynn Edwards as Fred Cochran, the crook who owns a gambling club/brothel, Miriam Karlin as Lil, his long-suffering lover who runs his decrepit knocking shop, James Booth as Tosher, Fred's second-in-command who pimps the brasses Rosie and Betty, played by Barbara Windsor and Toni Palmer, Wallis Eaton as the camp interior decorator Horace, Tom Chatto as the bent local Police Inspector and, among the supporting cast, a young Yootha Joyce. That album is so packed with larger-than-life vocal performances that it's hard for any revival to match it but Johnson has given us a production which leaps off the stage with full-on attack and neon-lit characterisations.

I had seen the show when it was revived in 2011 by the Union Theatre and while that production was compromised by bad design and a shocking supporting performance - see here for that blog review - it's nice to see two of the better performers appearing here, Ruth Alfie Adams and the unstoppable Suzie Chard.

Norman's book has been revised by Bart afficianado Elliot Davis so it was a bit jolting for songs to pop up out of their usual context and sung by different characters.  The score has been filled out with three of Bart's early hits - WOULD YOU MIND?, LIVING DOLL and SPARRERS CAN'T SING - which are nice to hear but do stand out from the score's particular sound but I must admit that even Davis has not managed to fix the plot's odd climax which seems to stop too soon and then take a long time about it.  Davis is also the musical director of the onstage band.

A big plus is William Dudley's evocative basement spieler and costumes as well as a clever use of video footage to suggest the Soho world above.  The show was enlivened by Nathan M. Wright's inventive choreography, a constant delight.  But what raised the roof and rattled the rafters were the vibrant performances.

Jessie Wallace, while essentially playing a variation of her "Eastenders" character Kat, gave a full-on performance as Lil, her weariness at her unfulfilled life with Fred very palpable and she belted Lil's great songs with real brio.  Mark Arden played Fred with a real menace although his 'dead 'ard' accent was a bit overdone.  One of the surprises was Gary Kemp who played the bent copper PC Collins with a welcome light touch and sang his big number COP A BIT OF PRIDE well.

 

He had the added pleasure of sharing his number with the fabulous Suzie Chard who brought big hair, big personality, big boobs and more importantly a big voice to the role of Betty the tart with a heart of pure brass.  She belted over her number BIG TIME with the attack of the late and great Georgia Brown and it was lovely to see her again.  Oddly enough although she played the same character at the Union Theatre, there she was named Barbara!

A real standout was Sarah Middleton as Rosie, the young runaway who Tosher recuits as the latest addition to his stable.  She had a nice presence on stage and her performance of Rosie's big song WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO TO? was wonderful.  Christopher Ryan also made a big impression as the eternal jailbird Red Hot, always on the cadge and with knocked-off goods to sell.  The supporting cast also featured fine work by Will Barton and Vivien Carter as the posh couple who arrive at the spieler.

The cast had a few mis-steps too: Ryan Molloy played the gay interior decorator Horace but, while not as atrocious as the Union Theatre actor, again this role was over-played to the nth degree and it was not surprising that his laugh lines went for nothing while Stefan Booth was oddly over-emphatic as Tosher.

But these can be overlooked easily as the show was so hugely enjoyable, it would be great if it had a continued life after it's scheduled run.  It deserves a West End run just like it's original incarnation to enliven the current London theatre musical scene.

Well done Startford East on the genius stroke to reprint the original 1959 programme!  Who knew that the very first production featured A TASTE OF HONEY writer Shelagh Delaney playing a young "mystery" and that none other than Richard Harris played the crooked copper Collins?  I wonder whatever happened to Mrs Parham who sold drinks in the long bar, Mrs. Murphy who sold teas in the snack bar and Miss Darvill who ran the box office?

After seeing FINGS, again I find myself wondering when will we see a revival of Lionel Bart's Liverpool musical MAGGIE MAY which played at the Adelphi in 1964, first with Rachel Roberts then Georgia Brown in the title role and a young Julia McKenzie in the chorus.

100 x 2

That's an odd title isn't it?  But it ties in with the revival of OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR at Stratford East, the theatre where this groundbreaking show was born.

In case you haven't noticed, this year is the Centenary of the start of World War I but at Stratford East they are also celebrating the Centenary of the birth of the theatre's unique former artistic director Joan Littlewood.  Ironically, Littlewood came close to not even doing the show in 1963.

Her partner Gerry Raffles heard Charles Chilton's radio programme "The Long, Long Road" in 1962 which interspersed soldier's reminiscences with the songs they sang among themselves.  Raffles told Littlewood about it and suggested it might make a good show for her company Theatre Workshop but she turned the idea down as she was an avowed pacifist.  Undeterred, Raffles invited Chilton to the theatre and while going through the songs, Littlewood began to see the potential in making a show that was a critique of the war and the warmongers but to also celebrate the lives of the ordinary people swept up in their power-games.  Her idea to present the company as a Pierrot troupe gave the show a suitably Brechtian twist and featured such characterful actors as Victor Spinetti, Brian Murphy, Murray Melvin, Larry Dann and Fanny Carby.  The show was a huge popular success and moved on to both the West End and Broadway.  Richard Attenborough then went on to make a leaden, joyless screen version in 1969.

I have seen two revivals of the show and was looking forward to seeing this one on the stage where it was created.

There are several scenes in the show that always start the silent waterworks and again this production hit those moments with a quiet power - the Christmas Eve, 1914 scene on the western front when the English and German soldiers stop fighting and meet each other in no man's land to share makeshift Christmas presents always sets me off and the powerful scene of the French soldiers baa-ing their way towards the guns, literally 'lambs to the slaughter' is still unsettling.  The production uses the original trops of slides of contemporary photographs and a moving display that rolls out the awful casualty totals for the battles but the micro-sign that is in the current production uses too large text which makes it difficult to follow what is being scrolled.

What remains the success of the show is the use of the contemporary tunes as well as the snatches of song that the soldiers would sing while marching or in the trenches which constantly reach down the years and jolt you with their jaundiced and savagely ironical lyrics.  The chilling detachment of their words curdle the pretty melodies that they appropriated and are put across by the present company with both gusto and despair.

Sadly for me the show is now hampered by the too-frequent scenes where those who hold the strings - the Generals, the politicians, the businessmen - disrupt the more interesting ones with the soldiers.  What makes it all the more frustrating is that these are the real legacy of the Littlewood agit-prop style but now they are too blatant, too obvious and ultimately too damn long.  At the start of the second act, there is an interminable scene between American, English, German, French and Dutch businessman comparing the fortunes they have made off their munition-trading while on a Grouse shoot (geddit?).  It's so heavy-handed and obvious that it outstays it's welcome very quickly.  You want to shout at the stage "Yes we get it!!"  A re-write of these scenes could easily be done to make these scenes more effective for a modern audience but I'm guessing the show is frozen in deference to Littlewood's wishes.

The show seemed to take an awful long time to get going - namely down to the interminable "War Game" scenes setting out how the war started but start it did with the first real appearance of Caroline Quentin as the Music Hall star singing the recruitment song "I'll Make A Man Of You".  She shook the production awake by the scruff of the neck with her galvanising rendition and her two other major scenes were very effective - speed-singing "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts" and also as Mrs. Pankhurst being hectored and pelted as she tries to deliver a pacifist speech to an angry street crowd.  It's actually refreshing that Littlewood included this scene as it showed how most of the general public refused to believe there could be any other way forward apart from through killing.

Among a generally good cast, Ian Bartholomew was particularly fine as General Haig, Shaun Prendergast had a good Max Miller-like quality as the MC of the evening and I liked the contributions of Oliver J. Hembrough, who I remembered as the put-upon husband Edgar in last year's TITANIC.  Terry Johnson has directed the show with a sure but possibly a too-reverential hand and I liked the Lez Brotherston's stage design which copied the theatre's proscenium arch and stage boxes in metal scaffolding and filigree.

 

Constant Reader, as we are on the subject of revisiting shows, I went to see Richard Eyre's pressure-cooker production of GHOSTS again which has now transferred from the Almeida to the Trafalgar Studios (my blog from the original Almeida production is here) and I am happy (?) to report that it is still holds you in a vice-like grip of increasing despair and again I found myself breathless at the power and intensity of Lesley Manville as Mrs. Alving.

It was a pleasure to see her performance again and to see how she subtly shades the reactions and actions of her character and how ultimately she descends into her own living Hell.  She is magnificent and it's amazing she has kept up this remarkable performance with all that is asked of her during the course of it's 90 minutes when she is rarely offstage.

Run to see GHOSTS before it closes on March 23nd, OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR ended it's run on the 15th.

After SPIDERMOOSE: TURN OFF THE VOLUME it was time for something with a little bit more heart... and we had just the show. Who could turn down the chance of seeing The Queen of Broadway Harvey Fierstein as 'Zaza' in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES?

Harvey won a Tony Award for the LA CAGE book in 1983 and he is now the right age to play Albin, the temperamental diva of the Riviera so when Douglas Hodge left the production at the start of the year, Harvey was the most obvious choice to take over the role.

The night we went he was on his third 'Georges', as 'twhere. He started his run with Jeffrey Tambor who then pulled out sharpish due to a back injury which *ahem* seemed to affect his singing voice. He has since been replaced by Christopher Sieber but he was off on our night so we saw the understudy Chris Hoch.

I am presuming that being so partnered was the reason that Harvey was a trifle, um, unstoppable. As he rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out for the nth time, it suddenly occurred to me that he was reminding me of Harpo Marx! Showboating apart, Harvey gave us a larger-than-life performance, a real star turn and his rendition of "I Am What I Am" was wonderfully touching and heartfelt.I must say I also thoroughly enjoyed the performance of Chris Hoch as 'Georges'. Usually cast as Francis the stage manager, Hoch had a brief run as 'Georges' in the hiatus between Tambor and Sieber and he gave a charmingly urbane performance, holding his own against the Fierstein fireworks without really pulling the focus, well done that Hoch!

I'm not sure where it happened - in the journey across the Atlantic or during it's near-year long run at the Longacre Theatre - but Terry Johnson's production has broadened more than somewhat and has lost some of it's Menier/Playhouse charm.

A prime example of this was shown in the performance of Wilson Jermaine Heredia as the camp butler Jacob. Heredia (the original Angel in RENT) was so busy signaling that his lines were funny that the last thing you felt like doing was laughing. Oddly enough the tricky male ingenue role of Georges' son Jean-Michel, which I had not seen done well here, was effortlessly played by A.J. Shively.The comedian Mike McShane as Deputy Dindon was oddly muted but I enjoyed the glamorous performance of Christine Andreas as Jacqueline the restaurateur.

Les Cagelles were as watchable as ever but I felt again, that the personality and characterful line-up from London had been replaced by the more hard-faced professionalism of the Broadway stage.One of the 'broadening' elements however does work - we were greeted at the door by a chatty 'hostess' who popped up again sitting on the stage as a warm-up for the show, chatting and insulting with the audience. She was great fun and an interesting addition to the production.

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES marks the third time we have followed a show from the Menier to Broadway: previous shows have been SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE at Studio 54 and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at the Walter Kerr (which is across the road from the Longacre spookily enough!) - I wonder if there will be a fourth?

Sometimes there is a particular thrill in seeing a performer who has consistently performed well through the years finally getting the moment to truly shine - it happened with Clarke Peters in PORGY AND BESS and now Tracie Bennett is receiving nightly standing ovations for recreating Judy Garland in Peter Quilter's END OF THE RAINBOW.

Although still best known from her stint in "Coronation Street" in the early 1980s, Tracie has for years been working away in theatres in the provinces and West End, in the process winning 2 Olivier Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical out of 3 nominations. I suspect she will have to clear the mantelpiece for a few more and while there is no denying her achievement... Tracie, someone done rained on your Easter Parade.Sadly the play is annoying in the extreme - and the more I have dwelt on it, wanting to like it for the sake of Bennett's performance, the more I have wanted to kick it. Peter Quilter has, I presume, set out to write his own PIAF about Judy Garland's stay in London for 5 weeks over the new year of 1968/69 when she appeared at the Talk Of The Town but Mr. Quilter... you ain't no Pam Gems.

Quilter has been beavering away since 2001 on his subject when the first attempt LAST SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE which starred Tracie Bennett as his un-named heroine came and went at the New End Theatre Hampstead. The play then popped up four years later in Australia with Caroline O'Connor in the lead who later reprised the role in Edinburgh.So here we are finally in the West End and the play does have the distinct whiff of something that has been toured to death just like the star it's depicting. It's hard to know where to start with this woeful script.

Particular moments where I ripped up the Trafalgar Studios carpet with my curled toes include when Hilton McRae's gay pianist tells Garland's overbearing husband-to-be that it will be the gays who will keep Judy alive long after she's dead - stressing the line so much one wonders if this is all Quilter wanted us to take from the show - and the obligatory scene where said gay pianist is briefly overcome with a heterosexual snogging fit.
Director Terry Johnson also needs a dry hard slap for the endless playing out of the consequences of Garland stealing pills from her pianist's bag which turn out to be his dog's mange pills, hours of business of Judy cocking her leg - not once but twice - then rolling on the floor to be tickled, barking, snuffling around the furniture - YES WE FUCKING GET IT!!!

There is no development of any of the three characters, no particular insights into the nature of fame or celebrity or any feeling that, as has been claimed by Liza Minnelli or Lorna Luft, even at her lowest ebb Judy was someone you just wanted to be around. Oh and don't get me started on William Dudley's idea to paint a carpet on the bare stage only for people to loudly clump all over it.
Hilton McRae as her diffident but caring pianist Anthony seems overwhelmed by Hurricaine Tracie and underplays laughlines to a worrying degree and Stephen Hagen is given no help in building the character of Mickey Deens into anything other than an over-bearing, joyless user. In a bizarre wordless moment at the end he moves towards Judy who shrinks away from him and he leaves... so this would be the same man she married a few months after these events took place?

But no, Quilter only allows the fictional Anthony to be the one who cares for Judy - and who of course delivers the obligatory "Judy Garland was found dead etc etc" verbal wikipedia obit at the end of the play. Where the evening takes off are in the moments when the action switches to the Talk Of the Town stage and Bennett is allowed to let rip into several Garland standards although there was a distinct whiff of "Tonight Matthew I will be..." about it - imagine my amusement to see she had in fact won a Celebrity Stars In their Eyes as Judy Garland. To be honest I also found it difficult to totally give myeslf over to the illusion as she looked more like Lucille Ball.

Capturing exactly Garland's soaring open-throated belt voice however, Tracie Bennett turned her songs into genuine showstoppers and took the roof off with an incredible version of THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY. It is typical of the botched thinking behind the production however that building to the obvious climax of OVER THE RAINBOW followed by her thoroughly deserved rapturous curtain call, Bennett suddenly launches into a coda of BY MYSELF which ruins the moment.To be honest in the duller moments of Quilter's play I was watching Tracie Bennett and thinking how much I would love to see her as a future Mama Rose in GYPSY.

One can only hope that she does not go the way of Lesley Mackie, the West End's last 'Judy' back in 1986. Yes she won a deserved Olivier Award for her performance - in an equally ho-hum piece it must be said - but all it got her was a supporting role in BRIGADOON and then she returned to her native Scotland never to grace the West End again.