La Cage Aux Folles All Set for Yeadon Premiere

By James Grayson (Twitter - @jamesAgrayson)

They have pushed the boat out this year so Yeadon Amateur & Dramatic Operatic Society are hoping the local community turns up in force to see La Cage Aux Folles.

Led by new director Jonathan Tate, David Kirk stars as Georges, while Andrew Walton plays Albin who doubles up as drag queen ZaZa.

However, the society has taken a risk by deciding to pick La Cage as their spring musical in a bid to attract new followers.

La Cage is rarely performed by local amateur dramatic societies and secretary Linda Marshall explained why: “La Cage is a fabulous show that isn’t performed often and you hope it attracts new audiences.

“It is difficult to costume and difficult to find the right cast members, but you have to set yourself the challenge and that is what we have done by choosing La Cage.

“This year we have a new production team, musical, director and choreographer and we were looking for something that isn’t done often to introduce these new people to Yeadon audiences.”

La Cage revolves around the lives of gay couple Georges and Albin who are happily running a drag club until Georges’ son announces his engagement to a controversial right-wing politician.

Georges and Albin then have to meet their son’s fiancée’s parents, but their attempts to ‘play it straight’ descend into a farce.

Andrew (pictured above), who has previously performed in La Cage before, believes audiences will find the musical amusing.

Andrew, while doubling up as a Job Centre Business Manager for the Department of Work and Pensions, has starred in productions for a number of societies including the Ilkley Amateur Operatic Society.

He has appeared as Billy in Carousel, Bobby Child in Crazy for You and Roger De Bris in The Producers and Andrew says the role of Albin is the most challenging of his acting career.

“At the start of one of the songs, I start off as a man and get dressed throughout the song into a woman,” he said.

“You’re putting on the make-up, putting the dress on, the wig on, the shoes throughout the song. That is quite frightening at times to think that everything has to go in the right order because by the end of the song, I need to be there as ZaZa.

“It is daunting and it is my hardest role because I have to be something completely different.”

The musical contains a number of familiar songs including Gloria Gaynor’s hit I am What I am and Andrew insists people will enjoy La Cage.

He said: “Anyone who comes will find it entertaining. There is some very dialogue throughout the production and there are some fabulous songs in it.

“There are a lot of songs that everyone will know and the song I am What I am that was made famous by Gloria Gaynor in the 80s was actually written for this production.

“There’s a song called The Best of Times which a lot of people will know. There are all these songs out there that people don’t realise that they actually originated from a musical into mainstream pop songs.”

La Cage begins at Yeadon Town Hall on Tuesday 12 March and runs through until Saturday 16 March.

Tickets cost £12 in the stalls (£11 concessions) and £14 in the balcony (£13 concessions).