A thoroughly implausible yarn about a Mexican cartel leader who hires a lawyer to arrange his transition, but is carried along by its cheesy Broadway energy

Anglo-progressives and US liberals might worry about whether or not certain stories are “theirs to tell”. But that’s not a scruple that worries French auteur Jacques Audiard who, with amazing boldness and sweep, launches into this slightly bizarre yet watchable musical melodrama of crime and gender, set in Mexico. It plays like a thriller by Amat Escalante with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a touch of Almodovar.

Argentinian trans actor Karla Sofia Gascon plays Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a terrifyingly powerful and ruthless cartel leader in Mexico, married to Jessi (Selena Gomez), with two young children. Manitas is intrigued by a high-profile murder trial in which an obviously guilty defendant gets off due to his smart and industrious lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana); she is nearing 40 and secretly wretched from devoting her life to protecting unrepentant slimeballs, who go on to get ever richer while she labours for pitiful fees. Manitas kidnaps Rita and makes her an offer she can’t refuse: a one-off job for an unimaginably vast amount of money on which she can retire.

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© Photograph: Shanna Besson

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© Photograph: Shanna Besson

The great Howard DaSilva performs the showstopping number "Little Tin Box" Fiorello! is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a reform Republican, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, and tells the story of how La Guardia took on the Tammany Hall political machine. The book is by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott, drawn substantially from the 1955 volume Life with Fiorello by Ernest Cuneo, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.

It won the three major theatre awards - Tony Award (shared with The Sound of Music), the New York Drama Critics Circle award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It is one of only ten musicals to win the latter award. As a side note Mr. DaSilva was blacklisted for many years by Hollywood In 1947, his career was threatened when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its investigation into alleged Communist influence of Hollywood. Actor Robert Taylor, called as a "friendly witness", accused many of his fellow actors and writers of either being communists or having communist sympathies. When questioned about da Silva, Taylor said, "I can name a few who seem to sort of disrupt things once in a while. Whether or not they are communists I don't know. One chap we have currently, I think is Howard da Silva. He always seems to have something to say at the wrong time."