Theatre review: 42nd Street

The pull-quote on the poster promises one of the most famous openings in musical theatre - no, not Elaine Paige's vagina, but the seemingly infinite rows of tap-dancing chorus girls and boys who fill the stage as the curtain goes up on 42nd Street. Harry Warren (music,) Al Dubin (lyrics,) Michael Stewart & Mark Bramble's (book - Bramble also directs) musical is based on a novel, presumably a pretty short one as this classic story of overnight stardom is the Broadway success fantasy at its simplest. Peggy (Clare Halse) is fresh off the bus in New York when she flukes her way into the chorus of a new Broadway show. During the out-of-town tryouts though, leading lady Dorothy (Sheena Easton) breaks her leg, and the only wait, Sheena Easton? I haven't heard that name in decades. OK, fair enough, Sheena Easton it is. The only way for the show to go on is to cancel all the previews, bring the Broadway opening forward, rehearse Peggy in the lead in 36 hours straight and open to the critics immediately.

Theatre review: Funny Girl

The show hasn't even had its first preview yet, and already it's sold out: It happens to Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, and it happened for real when the Menier's revival of her life story sold out within hours of going on sale, largely thanks to the star power of Sheridan Smith. The West End transfer has already been announced and extended once and a Broadway run discussed, so we're very much in "critic-proof" territory. So what's left to say about Michael Mayer's production, which the Menier were allegedly going to shelve if Smith hadn't agreed to star? Jule Styne, Bob Merrill and Isobel Lennart's musical version of a true story has had some new tweaks to the book from Harvey Fierstein, but remains familiar to anyone who's seen the film version, in which Barbra Streisand's performance became so well-known it's made producers steer clear of reviving the show until now.

Theatre review: Casa Valentina

If I hadn't seen those fucked polar bears in between, this would make a double bill of Harvey Fierstein shows about cocks in frocks, and while Kinky Boots is the big hitter at the moment, for me the real heart is with Casa Valentina. Fierstein's latest non-musical play, it receives its UK premiere at The Large, with Luke Sheppard returning to direct before he revives In the Heights. It's 1962 in a remote part of New York State's Catskills, where married couple George (Edward Wolstenholme) and Rita (Tamsin Carroll) run a weekend resort that sometimes hosts hunting parties. But their main clientele, and the reason they opened the resort in the first place, is very different: George has another identity as Valentina, and the remote location provides a safe environment for him and other transvestites to dress as women in public without fear or judgement.