By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

WHEN?: Sunday 10 November and runs through 4 January 2025 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (with 20-minute interval)

We last saw Jason Donovan (Joseph, Palladium) in 2009 in the West End production of this 1994 Oscar-winning musical and here Drag Race Espana winner Sharonne (Benidorm Fest 2023) takes the lead.

• Read on for reasons including why we we join the standing ovation at this absolutely joyous show’s close

We’re especially excited to see it at this 1,500-seater self confessed ‘home of the musicals’ (hogar de los musicales) because a sequel of the film with its original stars has recently been announced .

For the uninitiated Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert is the story of drag queen Tick, covered gamely at this performance by Alberto Collado, who takes a call from Marion backstage in Sydney asking him to come to Alice Springs to perform and to reunite with their their six-year-old son Benji who wants to meet his father.

Tick enlists Sharonne’s transsexual Bernadette, mourning the loss of her husband when we meet her at a funeral to The Communards’ Don’t Leave Me This Way, to drive a bus across Australia – the titular Priscilla – with younger fellow drag queen Felicia whose arrogance winds everyone up.

The songs are camp and well-chosen – Go West by Pet Shop Boys starts the journey – and jeopardy comes first in a Broken Hill bar and later as our drag queens find Priscilla has been daubed with homophobic graffiti.

Priscilla breaks down, the queens perform I Will Survive for Aborigine Jimmy and tourists while mechanic Bob takes a shine to Sharonne’s Bernadette (pictured centre below) and we later learn he saw her perform in her youth.

Bob’s estranged from his wife Cynthia and they split up after she performs an act with ping pong balls at the local bar to Pop Muzik upstaging the queens.

Often the song choices are ridiculous – Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park as Bernadette with Sharonne shining in the lead leaves her cake out in the rain as she and Bob sleep under the stars after a picnic – but the show is bowled along by such big hearts and a theme of acceptance of difference that it’s impossible to resist.

We’ve seen a few shows at this venue now – The Producers and La Jaula De Las Locas – and it loves a bit of audience participation in a dancing number often immediately after the interval and so it is here.

We’re front row with a glass of red in hand and think it’s only the complication of an accompanying drink that saves us from being invited up the steps from centre aisle to stage on this occasion that saves us.

Back in 2009 and 1994 this subject matter seemed to us so close to home and daring and so its message was so welcome.

At least a decade later it’s still quite moving to see the love with which this predominantly Catholic country embraces this show not least when the straight couple in their 70s in the front row next to us applauds during a gay kiss. It’s predominantly spoken in Spanish although the songs are mostly in English.

So it’s with a mix of nostalgia but also hope for the future that we join a standing ovation at this absolutely joyous show’s close.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Teatro Tivoli Barcelona Tickets
• Have you seen a Sharonne show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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