Theatre review: La Cage aux Folles

A few years ago the original French play La Cage aux Folles played a run at the Park Theatre; now Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) and Harvey Fierstein's (book) better-known, to English-speaking audiences at least, musical version returns to London as Timothy Sheader's final production at the Open Air Theatre before he swaps it for the Donald and Margot Warehouse. It's a good cap on his time as Artistic Director at Regents Park, showcasing at it does a fresh production of a classic musical, with a lot of heart, a lot of energy, and a design (in this case particularly Ryan Dawson Laight's showstopping costumes) that would be in a lot of trouble if, say, it ever rained in summer in London. The spectacular frocks are there, of course, because the titular club is the French Riviera's premier drag cabaret.

Theatre review: The Pajama Game

The fun side of sexual harassment in the workplace comes to the Shaftesbury Theatre as Chichester's production of The Pajama Game transfers. In what is only the first in this year's major West End musicals about an industrial dispute in a factory, Sid (Michael Xavier) joins the Sleep Tite Pajama Company as factory superintendent, where he quickly gets on the wrong side of the workers and has to deal with one of the trade union representatives, Babe (Joanna Riding.) Despite their first meeting being a clash, and despite her being named after a sheep-pig, Sid falls for Babe, and although she protests otherwise initially, the feeling is mutual because this is a musical rom-com. As soon as they have both declared their love though, a strike over the factory workers' demands for a 7.5 cent pay rise threatens to break them up.