Review: Titanique, Criterion Theatre

Titanique takes the French Canadian singing superstar and gay icon Celine Dion and puts her at the centre of the romantic disaster movie – James Cameron’s Titanic. The sequin-clad strutting diva claims to have been present on the luxury liner, and leads the audience through her interpretation of Rose and Jack’s love story – using the medium of her many hit songs. The play is every bit as silly as the plot sounds. In a show like this you have to suspend disbelief and just ride the run of laughs. And there are plenty of laughs from a, sometimes overwhelming, number of rapid fire jokes.  It’s also shot through with popular cultural references, from films like Ghost and Dirty Dancing, to favourite West End musicals, to quintessentially British asides about Claire’s Accessories or Princess Eugenie’s headgear – which I fear may be lost on any tourists in the audience. It’s very clearly targeted at a gay audience – with Celine giving several shout outs to ‘the gays’. The survivors of the disaster are chosen by a RuPaul lip sync – hosted by the Iceberg who’s played by one of Celine Dion’s guest stars Tina Turner (this gives you an accurate idea of the multi-layered camp craziness of the show). 

Astrid Harris, as the glittering Celine Dion, is very funny. Her mannerisms and characterisation are superb and her accent hilarious. Her off the wall banter with the audience is extremely funny.  Every time she comes on she lifts the show, and it is a shame that her character isn’t used even more. Sometimes when the show gets a bit caught up in its own silliness the character of Celine cuts through that and brings star wattage back to the stage. The cast as a whole is tremendously strong and their singing faultless. The live band plays singalong hits including  the film’s signature tune My Heart Will Go On, I Drove All Night, River Deep Mountain High and All By Myself (beautifully sung by Charlotte Wakefield as Molly Brown). Despite the West End setting of the Criterion Theatre Titanique manages to hold on to the rebellious feeling of  fringe theatre from which I imagine it emerged. That’s compounded by the low-fi and rather silly props – the outsized heart of the ocean pendant, Rose being marooned on Celine Dion’s stage door, Rose wearing a pixelated bikini depicting her nakedness as she implores Jack to draw her like one of his French girls – and Jack’s hilariously simple drawings.

This is the first anniversary of the show hitting London’s West End, and I’m sure it’ll be a fixture for many years to come. A greater knowledge of Celine Dion’s body of work than I possess might have made it even more enjoyable, and at times it feels slightly overstuffed with jokes, which can be a little bewildering. But if you enjoy a smutty, excellently sung, extraordinarily silly panto style, gay cabaret performance, studded with popular-culture references and great tunes, then this is the show for you. But don’t take the kids, it’s got an age rating for a reason!

Written by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, Tye Blue
Directed by Tye Blue
Choreography by Ellenore Scott
Music supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Nicholas James Connell
Scenic design by Gabriel Hainer Evansohn and Grace Laubacher for Iron Bloom
Costume design by Alejo Vietti
Sound design by Lawrence Schober
Lighting design by Paige Seber
Musical director Adam Wachter

Titanique is currently booking until Sunday 7 June.