IN our mini-heatwave, the Grand Opera House was as hot as the French Riviera and the flamboyant feather parade of La Cage Aux Folles was hotter still.

Please do not apply your own Brexit to Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's gloriously camp musical just because the title is in French. Think of it as The Bird Cage, if that helps, but aside from the names and the St Tropez setting, it is now as much an American and British piece as it once was French.

Adrian Zmed's Georges has an urbane American air; John Partridge gives Albin/Zaza a Manchester voice for the first time, in honour of strong northern women and in particular his late mother; Jordan Livesey's dominatrix Hannah has a pronounced German accent because, well, she's German; and Samson Ajewole's utterly fabulous and exotic butler/maid Jacob is as London as jellied eels. When we do hear a French accent, it is for a Franglais one-liner gag, where a waitress says "Vous can dit that encore".

This is a Bill Kenwright show, the Liverpudlian impresario no doubt looking for a drag hit to rival Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, which has played to packed audiences at the Opera House, and La Cage deserves to follow suit.

Officially this is the first national tour of La Cage, although you may remember this particular bird flying York's way in 2002 when Coronation Street's Julie Goodyear topped the bill as restaurateur Jacqueline in Jeremy Hobbs's touring production. Where once Herman and Fierstein's 1983 gay musical had been cutting edge, Hobbs's histrionic account left it looking dated, but now we have come full circle again in our rampant new age of Trumped-up/Brexit intolerance, prejudice, hatred, division and derision.

The reason for this renewed resonance is the homophobic bigotry of right-wing politician Dindon (Paul F Monaghan), who wants to close down such "decadent/debauched" joints as La Cage Aux Folles, the club run so smoothly by Georges (Zmed), who lives an idyllic Riviera existence with the waspish-tongued Albin (Partridge), alias the high-maintenance, fading star attraction Zaza.

Georges's son Jean-Michele wants to marry Dindon's daughter Anne (Alexandra Robinson); the parents must meet, and so Georges and Albin have to cover up their lifestyle, the nude portraits and the animal-print furnishings, and Partridge's Albin needs to play "the role of his life" to help Jean-Michele's cause.

By then, he has wowed the audience already, first when Partridge turns into a peacock in his most spectacular feathers and then in a brilliant solo finale to the first half, impersonating Marlene Dietrich, teasing Tess Daly cattily and singing I Am What I Am to the diva max. Throughout, he expertly judges both the genuine drama and the queenly in his drama queen.

Everything is done with a light touch under Martin Connor's witty direction, right down to switching on lights with a certain male appendage on a neo-Greek bust and the fine singing of Marti Webb's sassy Jacqueline. Gary McCann's set and costume designs are a lavish show in themselves, and Bill Deamer's choreography is a feather-and-frock dream for the "half real, half fluff" drag queens Les Cagelles, the show's shemales deluxe.

Go on, catch the Bird: this is The Best Of Times indeed to see La Cage Aux Folles.

La Cage Aux Folles, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm, 7.30pm on Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york