TESTO

Purcell Room

★★★

“pushes the boundaries, defies expectations and refuses to conform”

Award winning drag artist, Wet Mess, closes the 2025 tour of their first full length solo show, ‘TESTO’, in London. Dismantling the boundaries of gender, transition, performance and more, this surrealist fever dream is as cocky as it is vulnerable. Self-described as “horny for your confusion”, the abstraction and pacing do lose me in places. However, the work remains provocative, inventive and daringly experimental – the kind of theatre we need more of.

Out of a green haze, the words ‘tell us about a dream’ glow red before taking us on an erotic journey involving butter that sets the tone for the evening. ‘TESTO’ explores transmasculinity in a dreamlike structure, weaving searching questions and real life interviews with movement and lip syncs. Themes surface in waves, some provocative, some reflective, others more ordinary. Only it’s not a dream.

Created by Wet Mess and produced by Metal & Water (Nancy May Roberts & Lucia Fortune Ely), ‘TESTO’ is anarchic and affecting. Beneath the swagger and spectacle lies a yearning to be seen, with all the contradictions and mixed emotions visibility entails. The closing sequence cycles the words ‘you are afraid but awake,’ anchoring the surreal in stark reality. Wet Mess also fulfils one interviewee’s wish to be mundane by fashioning a sofa from all that’s been discarded and cracking a beer. That said, it isn’t always layered, such as the giant gender sausages and defiant nude lip sync of Loreen’s ‘Euphoria’. Some of the more surreal sections elude me entirely – I’m looking at you butter bath. The pacing also falters: most sections linger a beat too long and a couple of passages seem to run out of development, creating gaps in momentum.

Wet Mess’ movement is an almost continuous thread, marked by strong shapes, intriguing lines and bursts of frenetic energy. However, it feels surprisingly restrained in places. The surreal butter dream, for instance, doesn’t lead into a dynamic grand entrance but some slightly anticlimactic swaggering. The sequence of jerking and humping risks becoming repetitive after a while. Though perhaps this is a deliberate subversion of expectations.

Wet Mess delivers an arresting performance, brimming with cockiness yet tempered by rawness and vulnerability. It is an assured, literally bare all display marked by precise lip syncs, strong movement and polished delivery. The lip syncing itself is cleverly varied, avoiding predictability, with controversial recordings sharpening the piece’s edge.

Ruta Irbīte’s set design is striking: a vulva like red curtain gives way to a phallic catwalk. Oversized sausages playfully suggest symbols of gender identity.

Baby’s evocative sound design weaves voices, vocalisations, synth and textured noise into a distinctive soundscape that shapes the atmosphere of each section and underscores the deeper messages.

Joshie Harriette’s lighting design conjures dreamlike illusions through deft combinations of smoke and light. Inventive spotlight positioning creates striking contrasts between light and shadow, while bursts of flashing intensify key moments.

Lambdog1066’s costume design is artful and layered, opening with a high fashion boxing cape – reclaiming a traditionally masculine symbol – and closing with a curtain repurposed as a robe – underscoring the interplay between spectacle and intimacy. Ultimately, the stripping away of all clothing functions as a powerful rejection of gender conformity.

‘TESTO’ pushes the boundaries, defies expectations and refuses to conform. But does it work as a cohesive show? I’m less sure. Still, that uncertainty doesn’t diminish its impact and the spectacle is worth witnessing, even if we never get to the bottom of the butter.

TESTO

Purcell Room

Reviewed on 28th November 2025

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Lesley Martin

Previously reviewed at Southbank Centre venues:

THE BRIDE AND THE GOODNIGHT CINDERELLA | ★★★★ | September 2025

NATURE THEATER OF OKLAHOMA: NO PRESIDENT | ★★★ | July 2025

AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | ★★★★ | February 2025

THE EMPLOYEES | ★★★★★ | January 2025

THE CREAKERS | ★★★★ | December 2024

DUCK POND | ★★★★ | December 2024

TESTO

★★★★★

“Using the word show seems a bit weird. It wasn’t really a show. It was an event, a sharing.”

Yesterday evening at The Bunker felt unlike any evening I’ve ever spent in a theatre, and as such, I felt it was right to write about it in a totally different way. I’ve introduced an I for starters, and so I’m going to introduce myself too. I’m a cis, pansexual, middle class white woman, aged 48. It feels essential to let you know this, as the series of evenings which Rachel De-Lahay and Millie Bhatia have curated put identity centre stage – racial identity, class identity, sexual identity and gender identity – and one of the things that last night made very clear, is that we can only view things through our own identity prism. So the old myth of the invisible critic just won’t wash.

The Bunker felt like a club last night. Buzzy. There was an excellent DJ, we were all standing, and we were offered a drink (rum and Ting, delicious) when we walked into the space. It was a young crowd and it looked and felt and sounded like London; like the London that is outside, that we journeyed through to get there. Which felt great. And made me realise how rare that is. There were knots of friends chatting, predominantly people of colour, and a sense of relaxed ownership, a comfortable knowledge – this night is for us, and about us – which I could only share from the edges. And that feeling taught me something, even before the show began. Even using the word show seems a bit weird. It wasn’t really a show. It was an event, a sharing.

Rachel De-Lahay’s idea is a simple one: different writers leave a letter to be read out loud by a specific performer. The letter is in a sealed envelope and the performer reads it live, having never read it before. The evening kicks off with a long letter that Rachel wrote to one of her best friends, Inès de Clercq, and it is Inès who reads it. The letter is honest, and funny and uncomfortable for Inès to read, as it is a reminder that no matter how much Rachel loves her, her race can’t help but play a part in their relationship. It is uncomfortable for any white person to hear, to witness, to think about, and that’s the point. The young woman standing in front of me was completely overwhelmed by tears half way through this reading, and, throughout the night, the electricity of words being spoken that are so often, too often, left unsaid, was palpable. There was a charge; the air crackled with it. Of urgency, of energy, of presence.

The next letter was written as a piece of spoken word poetry. Fantastic writing by Jammz; it also dealt with race in friendship, and Ben Bailey Smith (‘I’m mixed race, so I’m my own white best friend’) was direct and charming, and did the words justice. The final, and longest letter of the evening was written by Zia Ahmed and read by Zainab Hasan. This took a different form again, with Zainab reading out a selection of quotes – from Zia himself, from the Home Secretary Sajid Javid, from popular Muslim comedians – before reading Zia’s unbearably painful story of continual racist profiling which led him finally to stop his job as a nanny.

It went against the grain to give this show a star rating, as the words and stories of these artists and performers don’t need my critical validation, but they do need to be listened to. So consider my five stars a way of saying that this is essential theatre. Get yourself a ticket and open your ears.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography courtesy The Bunker

TESTO

Purcell Room

★★★

“pushes the boundaries, defies expectations and refuses to conform”

TESTO

Purcell Room

Reviewed on 28th November 2025

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Lesley Martin

Previously reviewed at Southbank Centre venues:

TESTO

TESTO

TESTO

The Bunker

Reviewed – 20th March 2019

★★★★★

“Using the word show seems a bit weird. It wasn’t really a show. It was an event, a sharing.”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography courtesy The Bunker

My White Best Friend (and Other Letters Left Unsaid)

The Bunker until 23rd March

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

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