By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN? Tuesday 12 August through 16 August 2025 RUNTIME: 60 minutes

We’ve enjoyed Mamma Mia! and even Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again but would we be ‘hitting the Vaseline’ for Bush! The Musical ?

• Read on for reasons including how the spirit of Victoria Wood ambled amongst us during this show

Drag Race UK returns to the nation’s screens this month and 1 of our favourite ever queens, Kate Butch (Sleeping Beauty, Harold Pinter Theatre), brings this – wink – 1-woman workshop for a short turn to Soho Theatre for a bunch of actors – cheekier wink – to occasionally join her onstage for a series of improvisations to some of Bush’s biggest hits and lesser-known gems in a mock jukebox musical.

The Queen of Yorkshire opens with: ‘I’m here to talk about my favourite singer of all time’ and it’s augmented by the art of ‘wafty choreography’.

Mamma Mia! is a recurring theme and Butch explains the art of shoehorning in her introduction for Wow! as we discover the real reason for the appearance of Cher’s love interest Fernando played by Andy Garcia in the hit sequel.

If you’re fans of Bush there’s much to enjoy here including a filthy skit on hit Cloudbusting which completely made us rethink our interpretation of the song.

The audience participation is good-natured which is just as well when the enthusiasm of a man under a sheet playing ‘Cathy’s’ ghostly father at a mock wedding risks completely overshadowing the show with his hilarious interpretative dancing.

Butch is an experienced host, acknowledges the audience love and, hilariously, threatens to go rogue if her end-of-show appreciation doesn’t quite match it. Clue: it does.

She even manages to successfully retrieve a fumbled gag about Hitler bombing Coventry which went to show just how quick-thinking on her feet she could be and how much this audience, including us, adored her.

Controversial opinion – we didn’t enjoy the Celine Dion parody show Titanique currently wowing audiences at the Criterion and we think this is very much what that could have been on a fraction of a budget.

What would Bush think? We had the pleasure of seeing Victoria Wood live several times and the quick-wittedness and daring humour ambling amongst us here very much reminded us of that comedy genius.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Kate Butch Tickets
• Have you seen a Kate Butch show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
• Enjoyed this preview? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook