By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Wednesday 27 December, runs through 31 December 2023 RUNTIME: 155 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

‘The prince seems to be under some sort of spell,’ observes RuPaul’s Drag Race star Kate Butch as Queen Camilla, ‘Like the people who voted Brexit.’

• Read on for reasons including Michael Marouli, Victoria Scone & Ophelia Love

If the London Palladium pantomime this year starring Jennifer Saunders is a ‘tsunami of smut’ that could happily sail over the heads of those children present, this annual drag production is definitely for adults only.

Butch was 1 of the highlights of the latest series of RuPaul’s TV show and demonstrated a skill at hosting and holding her own in variety skits which stands her in good stead here as she gets to sing Bananarama’s Venus adding ‘IBS’ to the ‘She’s got it’ hook.

She even owns the only piece of solo audience interaction with a shop assistant called Ricky who is sat immediately behind us in the 2nd row tonight and is called upon to stand up and repeat Queen Camilla’s catchphrase to remind us to shout it out each time she appears onstage.

She concludes the show brilliantly by signing off at its close saying she’s ‘going off for a sherry after the show’ with him.

The humour will be familiar to all those who know and love pantomime but the more grown up element is definitely more designed for the mixture of LGBTQ+ and hen night crowds that is here for the 1st night of a short run at 1 of the West End’s most prestigious stages.

We 1st encountered this drag pantomime at Trafalgar Studios in 2019 starring Baga Chipz and later at the Phoenix Theatre in 2021 with Cheryl Hole and Kitty Scott-Claus for Dick Whittington.

Scott-Claus returns again to play tonight’s titular role and excels when Victoria Scone as villainess Carabosse fumbles a line and asks: ‘Did you hear a cache of dums?’

Allowing the audience to catch up with the mistake but not immediately expose it, she allows Scone to finish her line and then offers: ‘No, I didn’t hear a cache of dums.’

The show’s vibe is of under rehearsal and a lack of budget which is perhaps underlined when Scone, who does have a lot of plot-based lines to learn, is completely thrown at the show’s denouement.

Thankfully Scone has many more happier moments especially during Act 2 opener I’ve Put A Spell On You from Bette Midler’s beloved film Hocus Pocus.

We should also mention Drag Race‘s Michael Marouli who gives a Fabulous Fairy who is always in control of her lines and her destiny and Ophelia Love’s ‘villager number 4’ who gets to bewitch in her own number from Chicago and is surely deserving of her own Drag Race UK shot soon.

There’s definitely a place for this drag pantomime in the West End and, as the audience is split in two for a rapturous competitive singalong to Kylie’s hit of the year Padam Padam near its close, it has surely found it.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy ATG
• Have you seen a Sleeping Beauty or RuPaul’s Drag Race UK before and are what did you think of this production? Tickets
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