Le Gateau Chocolat and Jonny Woo had some much fun over the last few years with their show A Night at The Musicals that they’ve extended the concept for a whole new show, the ingeniously titled Another Night at The Musicals. 

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The pair, who are both acclaimed cabaret performers, are close friends and share a love of musicals. Their show is simple, they celebrate and also make fun of the musicals we all love. Their simple show is hilarious, ingenious and a mountain of fun.

While their new offering delivers a whole new way of appreciated Xanadu, The Little Mermaid, Grease, Cabaret, Chicago, The Sound of Music and many others, they can’t cover every musical. So at the end of the show they invite fans to call out shows they love, that the duo haven’t yet touched on.

The other night the crowd called out for Oklahoma! and The Lion King. Le Gateau Chocolat can do an impressive medley of the whole of The Lion King in under 30 seconds, but there was one musical that he declared he just simply couldn’t stand. So that seemed like a good place to start a chat with the outrageous duo.

Le Gateau, you really don’t like The Rocky Horror Show.

LGC: No I hate it. I don’t mind the film, but I think I have an aversion like a Pavlovian response. I was in a really raucous environment, I’d been to see the show at The Brighton Theatre Royal and there was a hen’s night and a stag do, that were controlling everything and not letting people have their own experience of the show. I think that just sullied my digestion of Rocky Horror. Now everytime it comes up I feel like I get hives and rashes.

My problem with it is that all the good songs are in the first twenty minutes.

JW:  Oh the second half of The Rocky Horror Show, I don’t know if anyone’s seen it all the way through, about half way through I’m like ‘What the hell is going on? I’ve lost interest.’

Jonny is there a musical you don’t like – what makes your list?

JW: Is there a musical I don’t like? I don’t know, I can’t think of anything that stands out. Nothing gives me the same kind of reaction that Le Gateau has to Rocky Horror.

I’m actually not a big fan of Disney. I can’t bear that awful song from Aladdin. 

LGC: A Whole New World?

JW: Yes, A Whole New World is just hideous. I don’t get a lot of Disney stuff.

LGC: (laughs hilariously)

JW: I know we do a lot of it, I know we do a bit, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, a bit of Frozen. I’m yet to see The Lion King. I know what I do hate. The Greatest Bloody Showman. There’s no way anything from that’s going to end up in our show.

There’s some new musicals coming out soon. Beetlejuice is coming to Broadway soon. 

LGC: You know what I find interesting about the new musicals though. Apart from something like Frozen, which is a film, new musicals don’t seem to a song that will transcend the ages.

We’re still singing songs from Sleeping Beauty, songs from The Lion King and songs from Beauty and the Beast, songs from Grease. I can’t you a new musical song that has entered the eternal catalogue of musical theatre. I can sing you Electricity  from Billy Elliot, but not everyone in the room would know the song is from that.   

Give us time, Billy Elliot hasn’t even made it to Perth yet. It’s scheduled for 2020. 

LGC: They all come out with varying degrees of success. Hamilton is an international sensation now, but again – as complex and brilliant as it is – those songs aren’t songs that people are singing in the street.

JW: When you’re watching it in the theatre you can really be into those songs seem to be quite ‘hooky’, but afterwards it’s a little more difficult to remember them. I think it’s an incredible show, but how much of it will endure as a stand out song.

The old show by Rodgers and Hammerstein had memorable songs like Climb Every Mountain.

LGC: Oklahoma

JW: Yes Oklahoma, or You’ll Never Walk Alone

LGC: Some Enchanted Evening 

JW: They are amazing songs, even millenials know them.

We had a production of Carousel on here last year, the approach to domestic violence in that show does not stand the test of time.  

JW: Yes, I think some of these Rodgers and Hammerstein’s could do with a little bit of rewriting in the book. Especially Carousel. 

LGC: It’s not just Carousel. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is so rapey, Oh my God, I saw it two years ago at the Regent’s Park open air theatre. It would never stand up to the #metoo movement. The conversation has shifted. It is so full on – there’s one song called Weeping Women, it’s at the end of Act I, the women don;t want to go and the men say even though you’re weeping, you’ll love is in the end.  

I was like ‘Oh My God, Oh My God’, So all these old musicals, it’s just the conversation has shifted- thank God.

JW: They can be updated, like is being done for Gilbert and Sullivan. When Carousel first came out it was a different situation, but you could change that. There are some bits that need updating, there’s that line ‘Do you know what’s it’s like to be hit like so it felt like a kiss.’

South Pacific, was one of the first musicals to deal with racism. It was groundbreaking.

There was one song in your show that we couldn’t immediately place which musical it was from.

LGC: Really – which one?

LGC: That sounds like a lot of fun.

JW: Oh they’ve all sung it.

LGC: What’s great about you coming to the show and not knowing a song, is that it just shows what a massive amount of musicals we have to explore.

If you had to pick a diva, who would be your favourite?

JW: I want to say Liza, but I don’t think she’s really a diva, she’s so kooky. I’ve got a massive picture of her in our pub. It’s a huge poster from the ’80s. I went to see her at The Colosseum Liza with a Z is just brilliant and her vocal range is astonishing. She actually sounds quite low, but when you try to sing her she actually goes up really high into soprano.

LGC: When you think of divas, musical theatre wise, legendary is her Mum, Judy Garland.

JW: At the moment we’re all obsessed with Company which is on in London. Patti Lupone is in that, and after seeing Company I’ve become obsessed with Patti Lupone, watching old videos.   

You’ll never run out of musicals to discover. Catch Le Gateau Chocolat and Jonny Woo in Another Night at the Musicals      

Graeme Watson