Christmas cracker

Sweet Charity
Menier

Pajama Men: The Last Stand to Reason
Soho

Shocking. Absolutely shocking. My state of preparedness for Sweet Charity at the Menier was so poor that we nearly had a critic-doesn’t-know-what-he’s-talking-about scandal on our hands. I’d never seen the show before. I’d missed the film version. I hadn’t the foggiest who the star, Tamzin Outhwaite, might be, although her name, with that funkily off-beat zed nestling provocatively in its midriff, had crossed my consciousness at some point. I arrived with no expectations whatever (though, of course, I’m quietly proud of the fact that musicals and soap actresses lie outside the daily scope of my intellect and its exacting preoccupations). And guess what? The show’s a blinder.

Gorgeous little Tamzin plays an escort girl with a heart of gold who longs to swap the sleazy glamour of New York for a life of suburban contentment. This production has truckloads of charisma. The headline song, ‘Hey, Big Spender’, is belted out with the thunderous zest of a Triumph Bonneville being kick-started by a tanked-up Hell’s Angel. The second-act show-stopper, ‘Rhythm of Life’, is a hilariously choreographed spoof of Hair. Ms Outhwaite beautifully embodies the diffident charm of the sexy popsicle adrift in the big bad world and Mark Umbers, a serious talent who deserves to go far, is terrific as her nerdy suitor. Super-sophisticated Josefina Gabrielle adds genuine pathos as the big-sister figure who knows she’ll never escape the coils of her profession. The most recent musical I saw at the Menier was La Cage aux Folles. I loathed every shrill, preening, half-witted, out-of-date minute of it. So it immediately transferred to the West End where it’s still running. This show, I adored. So catch it now before it closes.

To Soho for an off-beat sketch show.