THEATRE TALK: A sense of deja-vu at La Cage

A return to the not-so-ordinary

La Cage Aux Folles is currently preparing for tonight's final - and sixth or so - press night to celebrate the return of Douglas Hodge and Denis Lawson to the cast for the show's final month of performances.

During its original tenure at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and more lately at The Playhouse, this revival has run the star gamut from theatre veterans Philip Quast and Roger Allam to TV favourite Graham Norton and most recently John Barrowman. It's a canny ticket-selling move on the part of the producers, who have kept the show open past its natural conclusion by bringing in an array of intriguing reinforcements to put bums on seats.

Kelsey Grammer this week announced that he would be taking on the role of Georges when the production moves to Broadway, with Doug Hodge reportedly the only original London cast member to make the trip to the States. I had heard that at least one of the West End Cagelles (Nick Cunningham, who plays Hanna) would be going over with the show - and hadn't heard anything to the contrary until now.

With Equity's current troubles over the Broadway Hair transfer to London (they are reportedly bringing the entire original Tony-award winning cast over - a tall order by anyone's book) it's perhaps not surprising that they have simplified by simply taking over the big star rather than dribs and drabs of the rest of the cast. However, New York is missing a trick - Cunningham is utterly hilarious and terrifying as the German dominatrix drag artiste. Keep an eye out for him in other roles, as well as Dane Quixall, whose scene-stealing grumping as the miserable Angelique will be extremely hard to top on Broadway.

Not so new but rather brilliant

I have recently discovered the rather wonderful Battersea Arts Centre, currently entertaining productions of George Orwell's 1984 and Jiggery Pokery, Amanda Lawrence's manic, intense one-woman show about the life of Carry On star Charles Hawtrey. Even if neither of these take your fancy, a visit to this exciting, atmospheric building, where design and detail varies dramatically from room to room, comes highly recommended. Recent productions included the wonderful A Small Town Anywhere, as recommended by Lyn Gardner, and dating further back, Punchdrunk's Masque Of The Red Death (The cat brought in as a character in the show remains to this day as Pluto, the theatre cat, though it's not clear how much of a mouser he really is...).

Battersea Arts is not your usual theatre space. It's fringe, but not your typical room-above-a-pub. It can accommodate all kinds of shows with performance spaces numbering in the dozens, focuses on experimental and out-of-the-ordinary work and has a lovely, cheery, community vibe to it. With its enormous foyer and bar/lounge area, you don't even need to be seeing a show to indulge. If you're looking for something a little different for your next theatre fix, you might want to take a trip to Clapham Junction.

What to do next?

You only have until Saturday evening to see Public Property, Sam Jackson's play about public relations and the price of fame, which is just finishing up at the Trafalgar Studios. While it's a touch clunky and could benefit from some script tweaking, the wonderful performances of Nigel Harman, Robert Daws and Steven Webb as a PR, his client and the boy who gets entangled in the pair's messy relationship are very much worth catching. Harman really gets a chance to flex his comic chops as the sleazy Larry, while Webb, whom I hadn't seen before, definitely has the 'wow' factor. He is an astonishingly, brilliantly versatile actor - his Jamie was subtle but brash, brave on the outside but hurting on the inside and not afraid to show it. Lovely.

The Priory, meanwhile, runs into January at the Royal Court but is also ripe for a look-see. Although it suffers from a lack of direction - is it a comedy, is it a thriller, is it a drama? - it functions well as the former with a touch of everything else, and the brilliant performances from the entire cast will keep you amused throughout. The interaction between Joseph Millson (Daniel) and Jessica Hynes (Kate) is wonderful, as is the work of Rachael Stirling and Rupert Penry Jones as snippy Rebecca and wet fish Carl. A nice, giggly evening out.

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