The toast of Paris

It's Paris in the 1930s. English soprano Victoria Grant (Ria Jones) needs money. So her gay friend Toddy (Christopher Holt) dresses her up as a Polish emigre, Count Victor, and gets her a job as a female impersonator. And whaddayaknow? Within weeks, Victor's convincing drag act is the toast of Paris. Problem is, Victoria can't blow her cover even when she falls in love with King Marchand (Mark Halliday), a rugged Chicago gangster. And King isn't sure if he's in love with a drag queen, a noble Pole, or a woman.

As a piece of drama, it feels like a ghastly, if well-meaning Janet And John primer for straight people. King's sexuality is constructed to make the plot work, not to make a convincing piece of characterisation, and the dialogue sounds as though writer Blake Edwards had never met a drag queen, feminist or gay man in his life.

As a musical, however, things are better: several of Henry Mancini's numbers go with a bang, and the rest are inoffensively generic. Jones gives a cracking performance in the title role (even if the rest of the casting is pretty lame), while director Phil Willmott throws sequins and high-kicks aplenty at the project. But nothing can disguise the thinness of the book.

Victor/Victoria