A Cock in a Frock on a Rock

Much as I’d love to claim authorship of the above, it’s actually a line from ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’.

I’m a massive fan of the film and I was excited but slightly nervous when I heard that a stage musical version was coming to town. Such a wonderfully original and quirky indie film unleashed on the theatre-going world as a big budget musical? Could it work? So many similar offerings have been universally panned, finished their run early or failed to reproduce the smallest iota of the excitement or authenticity of the original incarnation that it’s better to expect the worst. Anyway, having gone to see it for myself last night, it seems that the reviews (mainly good) and the word-of-mouth (all good) were completely justified.

From curtain-up, when three glamorous divas were lowered from the gods to swing mid air and belt out the opening number, we all knew it was going to be good.

The casting is fab, the cheese factor has been judged superbly and the choreography is stunning. However, it’s the ‘no expense spared’ costume and set design that really pulls the show into a league of its own. Seriously, they’ve splashed the cash and haven’t missed a trick. There are so many fantastic little details where corners could have been cut without anyone complaining.

There’s plenty of exposed, toned flesh to keep the straight ladies and gay men’s eyes firmly glued to the stage and I was pleased that they hadn’t toned down the innuendo and blatant sexual references too much and turned it into a watered-down ‘ooh, er missus’ version of the film.

I wasn’t the only person who enjoyed it – a packed house all got up for a standing ovation at the end. Well, apart from the three elderly ladies in the row in front of us. They cackled their way through all the penis jokes, admired the bare buttocks pretty vocally but unfortunately mobility issues meant they couldn’t jump to their feet for the finale.