It's always worrying when you arrive at the Alhambra and immediately find somewhere to park.

If Barry Humphries was worried about the scarcity of paying punters, though, he didn't show it.

"This is a collectors' item," he told the first night crowd (if crowd isn't overstating the case) at the musical which will transfer next week to the West End.

"I'm sick of packed houses. This is one of those occasions where the audience is outnumbered by the cast."

Those present were treated, effectively, to two shows - the second of which was the one they had come to see.

This latter entertainment consisted of Humphries' distaff side (Dame Edna Everage) doing what she does best: clowning and ad-libbing after sending band and the dancers away for a long drink and a smoke.

The pre-interval entertainment, however - the singing, dancing spectacular promised us by the advance publicity - was altogether less typical.

"We've tried to make it as lavish as buggery," said Sir Les Paterson, introducing it - and he was not wrong. Quite why they had gone to so much trouble was hard to fathom.

Dame Edna appeared scarcely at all, her role reduced to that of narrator of her own life story. Purple-wigged actresses played her as a child and teenager, a curiosity of casting which at a stroke removed the central irony that is Edna. No fewer than 11 original songs were included in this segment, and although Kit Hesketh-Harvey's lyrics had a delightful Tom Lehrer air about them at times, the joke soon paled.

The staging is extravagant and expensive, taking Edna's life from the dreary Melbourne suburb of Moonie Ponds to the equally dreary psychiatric hospital to which she has now been committed.

This would be a better device if it served as a vehicle for Edna to be herself, if that's not a contradiction in terms. As it was, it seemed like showbusiness for its own sake.

Judicious cuts to the first half will help. The second, fortunately, needs no help from anyone.

David Behrens

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