Musical theatre. Two words that, frightening enough in their own right, inspire a sort of hollow dread in most adult human beings when brought together. Much like “internet” and “dating”.

But while no one thought of combining, say, golf and expressive dance, or opera and base jumping (if only they had, Pavarotti might have left us in more spectacular fashion), this hideous hybrid is practised in theatres up and down the land as though it were the most normal thing in the world.

So welcome, Cardiff International Festival of Musical Theatre, which, for the next few weeks, will be bringing us a glitter-strewn feast of genre-bending fun, from Oklahoma! to Thalidomide!! A Musical (featuring songs including “It’s Hard to Hitch Down Life’s Highway with No Thumbs”) and even an event called Sing-a-Long Sundays, where you are permitted to release your inner Connie Fisher, (the winner of BBC’s How do you solve a problem like Maria?) on the understanding you lock her back up when the curtains drop.

So if you were glued to the BBC1‘s Any Dream Will Do, then hasten to Cardiff.

www.cardiffmusicals.com