Guest blogger Chris Boulton reviews Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical
The basic premise of the story is the adventures of three female impersonators as they cross Australia, from Sydney to Alice Springs, in a bus called Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. One of the major problems the producers had to overcome was translating what is essentially a road trip movie into a stage platform. Apart from a scene where they appear to be running over several different animals (including one brilliant appearance of Queen Elizabeth and her Corgi’s) and the moving of the bus wheels they didn’t waste too much time on setting up lots of props or SFX to show the movement of the bus – they left that to your own imagination and it worked very well.
The audience, unsurprisingly, went a bit wild when Jason Donovan appeared on stage. He looked every bit the tired Sydney Boy, someone who wants to get away from it all, and then the transformation begins and he’s every bit the Mitzi we know and love. Top points for the way he camps it up (worryingly he made it look a bit too easy)!
Bernadette (Tony Sheldon) was spectacular and I’m ashamed to say it but I think I might even prefer this incarnation of her to the original. The comedy element of Bernadette was exaggerated and fit her very well, with slightly too long pauses between the lines you know are coming, such as her response to the fact they’re going to Alice Springs. They made you lean forward, quivering with excitement and, in my case, muttering “say it… say it” under my breath!
Adam/Felicia (Oliver Thornton) was – I’m going to have to get this out early, okay? – Hot! I apologise as it’s probably not very professional while writing a review but he was. Setting that aside completely, again the character was exaggerated a bit more than the already camptastic Guy Pearce version but he pulled it off brilliantly and to quote, “he’s a great little performer”.
Strangely there was only one person who got a bigger cheer than Jason when appearing on stage and that was Cynthia, the Ping-Pong ball welding wife of Bob the Mechanic. By the bemused look on the rest of the casts face, I’m sure that the reaction was an occurrence at every show. (Ping-Pong balls did make an appearance, I’m happy to report.) The musical obsession with ABBA has been switched to Kylie and being the ABBA fan rather than the Kylie that did disappoint a bit but the “new music” fitted well with the original tracks. The outfits were, as you can expect, spectacular and almost every single one from the film appeared either worn by the three ladies themselves or during the final sequence by the rest of the ensemble.
I expect you’ve picked this up by now but I really enjoyed myself and judging by the fact that the entire audience leapt to their feet for a standing ovation, I wasn’t the only one. I recommend you go and see it at least twice. So with the help of Miss Understanding, the Club’s MC in Sydney where you first meet Mitzi, and her lessons on how to be a good Drag Queen (exaggerated arm movements and quivering lower lip) I think I’ll leave you and go try out a few moves in front of the mirror!
Great review!