The Royal Concert Hall was full and buzzing last night for the opening of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Surrounded in pink disco ball lighting the audience received their instructions as a flamboyant Australian voice filled the hall, no photos and place any large wigs under your seat.
Then on to the stage came the glitz, glamour and girls singing Downtown with Jason Donovan as ‘Tick’ appearing half way through to rapturous applause and then proceeding to get changed on stage into ‘Mitzi’. Now for lovers of the 80’s Jason you may be in for a bit of a surprise at how much he has aged, he is no longer Scott Robinson more a disorientated Doug Willis (his real life father and co-star in Neighbours), however his voice is as good as ever, if not better.
From the moment the curtains parted the audience was treated to crazy choreography, camp cabaret and crude comedy. The show is full of recognisable hits from “What’s Love Got To Do With It” to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”; however the highlight for me was when the Kylie obsessed ‘Felicia’ sang “Confide In Me” it was just epic, what was even more amazing was that last night ‘Felicia’ was played by Robin Mills who was just standing in for the usual Adam Bailey. Mills for me gave the stand out performance of the night, although credit should also go to the very graceful Simon Green who played ‘Bernadette’ and moved around the stage like silk.
Go see this if you want to find out what the pop really means in the song “Pop Music” or if you just want to spend a night smiling and laughing at some hot men in drag.
Tickets available from £15 here: www.trch.co.uk showing until Saturday 23 January 2016.
Review by Josie Opal