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Take the British tradition of panto and fill it with drag kings and queens, and you get the hilarious rough and ready Sleeping Beauty at the Harold Pinter Theatre.Summary
Rating
Good
It’s a weird phenomenon that things we loved as kids are being turned adult friendly. Adult soft play and ball pits are allowing grumpy grownups to be silly and play like children – who can afford to have actual children in this economy anyway? Another mainstay of childhood in the UK is the pantomime, so it only makes sense that the silliest of stage traditions gets the same treatment. (Oh no, it doesn’t…)
A common feature of panto is gender bending, so this festive season, to show us how it’s done, let’s turn to the masters of entertainment – drag artists. It helps, of course, that they know how to turn anything into absolute filth, so it’s a safe bet for a NSFW panto. Miss Moppe has written an adaptation of Sleeping Beauty, playing for a limited run at the Harold Pinter Theatre with a cast of eight well known drag kings and queens.
The story you’d expect of Sleeping Beauty is loosely presented, but that’s not really what we are there for. The cast features names that you’d recognise from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK such as Kitty Scott-Claus (playing Princess Beauty) and Michael Marouli (as Fairy Fabulous). From elsewhere on the drag circuit there’s also Yshee Black (as Muddles) and LoUis CYpher (playing King Clyde). The performers, as in any pantomime I suppose, are what you’re there to see – they provide the character, the jokes, the songs, the playfulness. In tonight’s show this is absolutely the case, with the cast bringing their individual style and personality to every character.
It helped that I was familiar with most of the performers, and made it feel a bit like I was watching funny friends strutting their silly stuff on stage. But the problem with groups can be the in-jokes, which were ten-a-penny. If you’re a Drag Race fan and aware of queer culture then you’ll probably be fine, but if not, you might wonder what a lot of the laughs are for – although I’m not sure what would draw you to this particular panto if you don’t know any of the cast.
Drag can be rough and ready sometimes, especially if your reference is the hastily put together challenges on BBC Three. While this can be charming, my least favourite thing of tonight’s performance were frequent references from the cast to how under-rehearsed the performance is. Frankly, it’s insulting to the people who forked out for a ticket to be told that they’ve bought something nobody put enough preparation into. It might be that some of those were written in as gags, but it made me notice plenty of flaws and cracks.
Even so, the majority of the show which did work worked well. It was cleverly written to show off the best of the individual performers (Kemah Bob as Prynx Handsome a standout by far), with all the usual bits and pieces that make up traditional panto – the shouting along from the audience, singing and clapping, innuendo, and a poor gentleman who gets picked on just for having sat in the stalls. The last half hour felt drawn out, and I wonder if some sections would work better in a different order, but it was overall a goofy, funny and really fun evening.
Directed by: Chris Clegg
Written by: Miss Moppe
Produced by: Tuckshop
Sleeping Beauty is playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 31 December. Further information and bookings can be found here.
