LA Cage Aux Folles gave birth to the indispensable gay anthem, I Am What I Am, and it begins as it intends to go on - on a note of high camp as Les Cagelles, the glamorous, high kicking, drag-queen chorus of the title’s St Tropez night club, strut their stuff to choreographed perfection. Gary McCann’s designs fill the stage with sumptuous, night-spot glamour, and costumes to make the most exotically attired member of the audience look on with envy. And it would be unfair not to mention wardrobe supervisor Gabriella Ingram and her team for what must be a most dedicated job of maintaining this sparkling array.

Nearly thirty-five years on, Harvey Fierstein’s book still has the power to raise a neatly plucked eyebrow at its simple yet pertinent tale of love and prejudice. Dougie Carter’s excellent Jean-Michele is newly engaged to Anne, and needs to impress her ultra-conservative, homophobic father with his own parents’ respectability. His problem? His father is not only gay and running La Cage, but now living with its transvestite star, Albin. When the need arises can Albin be trusted to behave as a respectable mother should? Can Anne’s father ever be anything but a bigoted politician?

Adrian Zmed is perfect as Jean-Michele’s father, Georges, and an oddly accented John Partridge is his drag artiste partner, Albin. Look out though for the cameos of star turn Marti Webb, and for Samson Ajewole’s redefining of ‘outrageous’.

Laurence Sach