To the Palace Theatre, a hallowed icon in theatreland and the original home of such all-time classics as Les Mis and The Woman In White, to see the brash new Australian smash Priscilla. I'm transported back to the time when I first fell in love with theatre, and faintly apprehensive about my forthcoming rub with cross-dressing glam. Maybe I'm a little repressed, but I'm not entirely sure I'm going to like this.
Wrong! It's brilliant. As subtle as a sledgehammer, but a total triumph nonetheless. Much has been made of Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner's lavish costume design and the spectacular production and effects by Brian Thompson, and this show is undoubtedly the biggest, brightest spectacle to hit the West End. But there's also an innate, direct Aussie wit about the whole thing. They know how to crack a joke and they know when to pull out their amazing drag version of Tina Turner: after about five minutes. She's simply the best and from that moment on the entire audience are along for the ride.
Priscilla, the transvestite road movie turned songbook musical about three queens on a perilous outback roadtrip to play the casino in Alice Springs, arrives on our shores following a hugely successful tour in Oz. However it's here that you feel the show could run and run. The theatre is on Soho's doorstep and this glam spectacle, packed with rude jokes, amazing costume changes and disco classics, is like the drag cabaret scene on steroids. With better jokes.
Visually, the show is spellbinding, with the battered bus Priscilla producing a surprising array of stunts, but even more impressive is the choreography by Ross Coleman, which is mesmerising, fluid and precisely orchestrated. There isn't a slip up in sight, although there are plenty of completely silly moments and ridiculously shoe-horned musical numbers – and why not? The soundtrack covers a huge range of camp disco anthems from Gloria Gaynor to the Pet Shop Boys via Cyndi Lauper and Jimmy Somerville.
Inevitably, the threatened, gritty undertones of the original movie are swept aside in a riot of enjoyment, with triumph over adversity assured and happy finishes all round. However, the show does stay true to the bitchy, savagely witty world of the girls and even finds time for poignancy as Jason Donovan's character Tick faces up to fatherhood. Ironically, Donovan is definitely the weakest performer: he just doesn't look comfortable as a drag queen, but he gets away with it because he's supposed to be feeling uncomfortable. In a moment that's both touching and hilarious he tells his son that he doesn't always play women on stage. There's also men, like Elton John, George Michael...
Veteran Tony Sheldon does brilliantly as lovestruck post-op transsexual Bernadette, and Olivier Thornton is incredibly powerful as OTT Kylie-worshipping Adam. There's a show-stealing turn from Kanako Nakano as the versatile Thai-bride of the girls' unlikely outback love interest Frank. Most of the musical numbers are lip-synch jobs but Thornton sings for real and there's an incredible trio of disco divas who descend from the rafters or materialise on the bus for those moments requiring a live feel.
To say that this show is a laugh from start to finish, that we are carried along in the moment, that we forgive shoe-horned musical numbers and slightly gawkish Jase, might undermine the performance slightly. It seems to imply that they're just having a bit of fun. And there is a degree to which this is a plain and simple romp, with character development sentimental at best and attention to detail confined to the costume changes. However, it only works because of the power and precision of the whole team. I haven't been so exhilarated by a musical since watching Buddy as a kid and that takes real showmanship. Or showgirlship. Whatever – Priscilla is a camp, spectacular delight.
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