PRISCILLA THE PARTY! at HERE at Outernet

★★★★★

“An incredible night out.”

“Priscilla The Party” is joyous, tremendous musical fun. Based on the 1994 Academy Award winner “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”, “Priscilla the Party” hails from Australia in 2006. It is a rip-roaring celebration of drag, queerness and camp musical theatre. Each scene is calibrated towards entertainment and intrigue from the start. The story follows ‘Tick’ (Owain Williams) as he travels across Australia to reach his wife (Kimberly Blake) and his child (a stooge) as part of a fabulous trio of drag queens travelling in a bus they christen “Priscilla”. Adam (Reece Kerridge) and Bernadette (Dakota Starr) accompany Tick as he travels throughout Australia battling homophobia, transphobia, making allies, and delivering hit after hit. The show is an immersive experience (developed and directed by Simon Phillips), with staging and actors moving throughout the crowd on the dancefloor. The set (Brian Thomson and Justin Nardella) and direction make great use of the atmosphere of a club with an impressive line up of dance hits from “Say a Little Prayer” to “Born This Way”. A tale of love, adversity and Aussie humour shines with amazing theatrical gravitas throughout.

Every cast member performs with outstanding energy, delivering a varied set of pop/dance songs in a jukebox musical for the ages. The quality of musical performance is high with remarkable talent on display throughout as Queens deliver ballads and romps with equal intensity and stage presence. Beautiful vocals draw us into the story and relay the emotions of the characters. The band are brilliant and you can tell they know they have the best gig in town (Musical Arrangements and Orchestration Stephen ‘Spud’ Murphy). The stage management team work tirelessly to coordinate movement of stages as they weave throughout the crowd. The sound design (Ben Harrison) includes familiar hits, punctuated by topical music in the breaks that ensure a continuation of the party. The multi-media venue makes use of video backgrounds (also Thompson and Nardella) and vibrant club lighting (Per Hörding). The show includes all the best parts of a drag show with all the precision and thought of a well-crafted musical (Musical arrangements and direction Steve Geere). A highlight are the fantastic costumes (Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner) and wigs, delivering camp, classic and heightened drag in the best possible way.

Seated dining experiences are available, though dance floor tickets make up the bulk of audience members who get to join in the concert-like drag-show-esque party atmosphere. “Priscilla the Party” is stunningly unique and totally immersive, taking the audience on a hugely enjoyable road trip through Australia whilst delivering one spectacular party en route. The close to three hours playing time flies by as the colourful scenes progress in and around the gloriously camp ‘Cockatoo Club’. Arrive early to enjoy the full experience, as there are superb opening acts to enjoy. With drag queens and musical actors combining their strengths, “Priscilla The Party” makes for an incredible night out.

PRISCILLA THE PARTY! at HERE at Outernet

Reviewed on 24th March 2024

by Jessica Potts

Photography by Marc Brenner

Recently reviewed by Jessica:

HOSTAGE | ★★★★ | Etcetera Theatre | March 2024

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PRISCILLA THE PARTY!

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★★½

“a wide-reaching play that has much to say about the world, but more than can be accomplished within its short length”

Any writer looking for dystopian inspiration can easily cherry-pick examples from the present day, something which can be seen in Vice’s opening film reel of horrors – featuring clips ranging from Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq to the more recent Grenfell Tower fire. But choosing too many things to rail against is what lets down Vice, an ambitious play that attempts to marry the personal and the political, but which ends up feeling a little lacklustre.

Following its rather powerful cinematic opening, the show leads us into the lives of a band of characters in the year 2023, a “new world” filled with war and old-fashioned air raid sirens. Revolutionaries Patrycja (Clementina Allende Iriarte), Em (Beth Siddall), and Johnny (Dimitris Kafataris) are planning a kidnap. While on the other side of the spectrum, politician Wetherby (Liam Arnold) argues with his daughter Jayne (Georgia Hodgson) about the disappearance of her sister – an incident that tops his litany of rather clichéd scandals. The two storylines intersect against a backdrop of bombings and uncertainty as we uncover the motivations and regrets behind each group.

Written and directed by Matt Rolls, the show has its merits and the cast largely deliver good performances, most notably Siddall, but also Kafataris, whose character adds a small but welcome element of comic relief to otherwise serious scenes. However, a plot that starts out as intriguing cannot sustain itself and ultimately lets down the carefully curated wartime atmosphere of the first half. The ending seeks to neatly wrap up all threads, but in doing so, sadly renders many of the characters and themes introduced earlier on redundant.

The cast and creatives are all graduates and current students of East 15 Acting School and they work well together. There are some well executed group scenes, good costume and design, and some staging that – although it probably changes around more than necessary – sets the scene effectively. But Vice’s other creative elements are undermined by a script that could have been tighter. While the writing has moments of cleverness and there are some promising monologues, these feel badly wedged into the main plot. Many lines simply offer a stand-alone commentary on today’s society and have no need for the context of the play’s murky future. The play also relies too heavily on its headline concept of the “old world” and the “new world”, continuously shoving this down the audience’s throat, with overzealous references to these terms peppered throughout.

In the end, Vice is a wide-reaching play that has much to say about the world, but more than can be accomplished within its short length. The result is a work too bogged down with elevated concepts to deliver a satisfying story.

Reviewed by Vicky Richards

Photography by Matt Rolls

PRISCILLA THE PARTY! at HERE at Outernet

★★★★★

“An incredible night out.”

PRISCILLA THE PARTY! at HERE at Outernet

Reviewed on 24th March 2024

by Jessica Potts

Photography by Marc Brenner

Recently reviewed by Jessica:

PRISCILLA THE PARTY!

PRISCILLA THE PARTY!

Etcetera Theatre

Reviewed – 31st July 2019

★★½

“a wide-reaching play that has much to say about the world, but more than can be accomplished within its short length”

In the end, Vice is a wide-reaching play that has much to say about the world, but more than can be accomplished within its short length. The result is a work too bogged down with elevated concepts to deliver a satisfying story.

Reviewed by Vicky Richards

Photography by Matt Rolls

When it Happens

Etcetera Theatre until 4th August as part of Camden Fringe 2019

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: