Review Roundup: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES Opens at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is presenting La Cage aux Folles, now running until Saturday 23 September 2023.

The final production by outgoing Artistic Director Tim Sheader at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, La Cage aux Folles celebrates 40 years since its original premiere on Monday 21 August. With a book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, La Cage aux Folles is based on the play by Jean Poiret, and includes the classic songs ‘I Am What I Am’ and ‘The Best of Times’.

Georges, Albin and their son Jean-Michel re-discover the true meaning of family, and of putting yourself last so that the ones you love can come first.

Carl Mullaney (Chicago/Les Misérables) plays Albin and Billy Carter (A Moon For The Misbegotten) plays Georges. Further principal casting includes Ben Culleton (Jean-Michel), Julie Jupp (Marie Dindon), Shakeel Kimotho (Jacob), Debbie Kurup (Jacqueline), John Owen-Jones (Edward Dindon) and Sophie Pourret (Anne).

Completing the cast are Jak Allen-Anderson (Hanna), Craig Armstrong (Cagelle), Tom Bales (Cagelle), Taylor Bradshaw (Cagelle), Daniele Coombe (Mme. Renaud), Jordan Lee Davies (Chantal), Nicole Deon (Ensemble), Lewis Easter (Cagelle/Swing/Dance Captain), Harvey Ebbage (Cagelle), Emma Johnson (Ensemble/Swing), George Lynham (Phaedra), JP McCue (Cagelle), Rishard-Kyro Nelson (Cagelle/Swing), Alexandra Waite-Roberts (Cagelle/Ensemble) and Hemi Yeroham (Francis).

See what the critics are saying...

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Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld: Well what a show for Artistic Director Tim Sheader to bow out on. Since 2007, Sheader has made Regent's Park Open Air Theatre a real theatrical destination and his revival of musical La Cage Aux Folles is gloriously frothy, deeply funny and completely fabulous.

Julia Rank, London Theatre: This show makes for a delicious late-summer treat that also marks Sheader’s swansong to the venue he’s run for the past 16 years before his departure for The Donmar Warehouse. It won’t be easy to fill such innovative shoes.

Miriam Gillinson, The Guardian: There are a few dips – particularly in the second half, when the life and colour is drained from the show as Albin and nightclub owner, Georges (Billy Carter), try to “straighten” up their act for their son. But the relationship between Georges and Albin lights up the show. Their partnership is laced through with tender moments: a loving glance here; a stroked shoulder there. For all the madcap costumes, flashes of leather, trilling singers and eccentric cabaret acts, this is a simple and moving love story that gives two men their chance to stride off into the sunset.

Adam Bloodworth, City AM: It goes out with a bang, of course. I’ve never seen so many colours and attitudes on one stage in one go. We didn’t even mention the chorus lines! This is the hit of the summer – book before the rest of London beats you to La Cage aux Folles, by way of Regent’s Park.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: That plot feels as wispy and lightweight as a marabou feather today, its central conflicts artificially manufactured. To work it needs the borderline hysteria that Robin Williams and Nathan Lane brought to the non-musical 1996 film adaptation, the Birdcage. Here the exchanges between the songs are desultory and lack urgency: the decision to have almost everyone use Geordie instead of French accents may be partly to blame.

Tom Wicker, Time Out: In case you’re worried that this is making the production sound heavy-going, don’t be – Mullaney plays up to us – the in-story and actual audience – with winking ease. Sheader, choreographer Stephen Mear and costume designer Ryan Dawson Laight also ensure that the club’s resident drag queen (and king) ensemble, The Cagelles, brim with individuality. The big set-piece numbers are staged with pizzazz and humour, showcasing each character’s diversity. Shakeel Kimotho’s puckish turn as Albin’s maid, Jacob, is a delight.

Gary Naylor, The Arts Desk: That said, the show sits on Carl Mullaney’s amply padded shoulders. His Albin/Zaza is the receptacle for all the turmoil of rejection and acceptance, not just within the world of the play but outside, where the forces of reaction represented by his fiancee’s father, Edward Dindon, are once more on the march. It’s a burden he carries with a supreme lightness of touch in the comic moments and a shattering emotional depth in the showstopping “I Am What I Am” anthem that closes the first half. He should keep his diary free when the awards season rolls round.

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