Heading to a drag panto is almost a logical action between Christmas and New Year celebration, embracing both glam, silliness and good spirits: Everyone can be in drag, everyone can be a panto dame, non-binary and cis performers alike – drag is no longer a boys-only club. And everyone is welcome who can embrace smutty scurrilous jokes adult (age guidance 16+) about pricks, missing watches, the royal family and Brexit. Here, at Sleeping Beauty in the drag panto edition, all famous boos turn into boobs, heckles are being fully embraced by the ensemble and self-ironic claims like “Three years of acting school for this xxx”, “I xxxking hate panto”, responded by “…and panto hates you” are guaranteeing roaring laughter and applause from the adult audience.
Visually supported by a disco ball, a mobile fog machine, sparkling tights and a confetti canon, it is this self-irony which makes the evening a very heart-warming affair: No one takes themselves, their scene, industry or genre seriously – proudly not. Broad hints are made towards the upcoming WhatsOnStage Awards, on Glamazon Prime shopping and whatever phase you are in your life, on the emphasis of setting borders well in advance. After all, Charles Perrault‘ fairytale has been used as an example of the importance of consent globally during the last decade over and over again. Otherwise, this staging is not caring too much about its 1600s literature roots (but a joke has been left out on the tale’s original title The Sleeping Beauty In The Wood. And let’s wait until someone finds out about the name of the Princess’s lapdog in its original text); just the pastel-coloured princess Booty, pardon, Beauty falls asleep after having opened a sinister gift from a long lost family member, after an array of bachelorette party hit presents, prepared during a filthy, rephrased performance of 12 Days Of Christmas.
Yes, singing along is encouraged and the audience joyfully joins cheering and clapping. We could have started right from the beginning: Karaoke favourites from Kylie, P!nk and the Eurythmics all made it on the play list – and of course, Sweet Dreams is a very suitable choice. But I am not too sure about the clapping up here in the Royal Circle at the Harold Pinter Theatre, a feeling is shared with fellow theatre goers tonight. Not out of standing ovation fatigue but because we can hear the building creaking. Eloquently described as three tiers of horseshoe-shaped balcony on Wikipedia, it would be quite a fall, and and having just learned that the venue was built in only six months, well… not too much action up here please. On stage nevertheless the cast which beats the role names easily with their own colourful stage names, is doing a fabulous job on including each performer and their stage hands, and everything else the queer alphabet soup offers in 2023. The moral might not rhyme but gives clear life-choice guidelines to everyone: “Forgive your stylist. Use your energy for the better good.” And “Wear more heels”. Where are the cowboy hats stating these in rhinestones? I’d buy one.
Opened in 1881 as the Royal Comedy Theatre, and renamed after their biggest star Harold Pinter in 2011, when visiting this gem of a theatre it is worth venturing out to the bars and toilets on other floors as 142 of theatre history are displayed on the walls of almost all staircases, nooks and crannies in this fantastic, historic and glamourous building (unfairly overlooked in my usual guide book on London’s most spectacular theatres). Even The Rocky Horror Show had its West End debut here! I remember it well from my first visit back in the summer of 2015 when it appeared that the whole of London went to see Sunny Afternoon here, the tribute musical of The Kinks. Tonight I am leaving TuckShop’s third drag panto with a similar feel-good smile: Sleeping Beauty is a festive round-up to this year’s finale, a lovely ensemble piece with genuinly good laughs, inclusive even to those not following Ru Paul’s Drag Race or anything else on TV. Just cut out the joke about a certain Austrian pervert please. I said please.
**** out of 5 stars
Sleeping Beauty was written by Miss Moppe and Christopher D. Clegg
Ran until December 2023, tickets from ÂŁ25
Sadie takes the Stage 