(L-R) David Harris (Mitzi), Tony Sheldon (Bernadette) and Euan Doidge (Felicia) sing ‘I Will Survive’ in Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical. Supplied.
It’s opening night and marking the 200th performance of an Australian classic film – now a successful stage show in its own right – Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and she comes to Adelaide on the 10th anniversary celebration tour.
As the publicity states: ‘The iconic hit musical has more glitter than ever, featuring a dazzling array of more than 500 award-winning costumes, 200 headdresses and a non-stop parade of dance-floor classics’.
This, ladies and ladies, is a veritable a festival of kitschtastic razzle dazzle and innuendo-laced, once ground breaking musings on sex, gender, love and ageing.
The evening commenced with spectacular panache even before curtain up; Adelaide’s plush Festival Theatre foyer drips with glamour, every nook and cranny rammed with sumptuous Queens in their glittery finest. There’s even delegates from the Broken Heel Festival (look it up, it’s amazing) spruiking their forthcoming regional glitz.
The buzz and hum dies down, the lights dim and the opening number ‘It’s Raining Men’ explodes onto the stage. A staggering, psychedelic triumph closely followed up by ‘What’s Love’ in moody splendour, replete with a diamanté-studded, multi-coloured, handheld, wireless microphone.
The first half is a riot of themes and colours, classic one-liners from the film propping up the action between songs; acidic observations of life and love. In reference to performing, Felicia, the show’s ultra-camp leading-Queen played by Euan Doidge, asks: ‘Why do we do it, night after night, copping abuse?’ to which wisened, transgender performer Bernadette (Tony Sheldon) cracks: ‘So we can feel like real women’ and tonight’s sympathetic audience hoots and simpers.
Exceptional costume design abounds, one should expect nothing less, given Lizzy Gardiner took out an Oscar in 1995 for best costume design on the film. The mind boggles at the logistics behind the synchronised, faultless flurry of costume changes occurring backstage, night after night. It’s a display of brilliance, harking back to the heyday of chorus musicals; both heartening an anachronistic, a little bit like the show itself.
One year shy of a quarter of a century ago, the film on which tonight’s theatrical extravaganza is based, burst onto the big screen and was hailed nationally and internationally for it’s quirkiness, eccentricity and individuality. The central premise is essentially an LGBT road movie, a concept inherently difficult to translate to the stage. Commendably, Brian Thomson’s bus concept design cleverly delivers its vehicular leading lady and the show, as a whole is a wonderful beast in subject matter, production values, colour, movement and cast.
The second half, whilst arguably not as good as the first act, is still solid.
Tony Sheldon’s performance as Bernadette, handsomely frocked, nuanced and deliciously fragile juxtaposes Felicia’s homoerotic, gaudy splendour. By way of introduction to Felicia, Euan Doidge and cast perform a gyrating; barely-vinyl clad ‘Better the Devil You Know’. It’s a titillating highlight. Overall Doidge’s take on the unforgettable, two-dimensional, sassy Felicia winds up being successful.
Three aerial divas make repeat, dazzling appearances through the show, vocal jewels in the large cast’s energetic renditions of easily digestible, well-known, dance floor favourites.
Tony Sheldon as Bernadette in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical. Photo by Sam Tabone Getty Images.
The thong dress was an anticlimax, Lizzy Gardiner’s iconic masterpiece reduced to sad, flat, flip-flops arrayed onto a black slip dress, as was Felicia’s famous turn atop Priscilla, in the film a glorious landscape tableau depicting a Queen trailing billowing, metallic fabric, unfortunately untranslatable to the stage.
Priscilla Queen of the Desert is mostly light-hearted with a wink at much darker subject matter; from the paint brush dresses in ‘Colour my World’, through to the probably-racist depictions of Indigenous, Asian, German and Scottish/Irish (it’s interchangeable) tourists visiting Australia’s red centre, Priscilla doesn’t shy away from the ridiculous, and at times narrowly skirts the realm of dated and charmless.
By turns bright and lewd – when they arrive in Broken Hill Felicia remarks: ‘If you were gonna give the world an enema I think I just found a point of entry’ but also unabashedly smultzy and laboured, such as most of the action scenes with a tiny, talented William Fleming. This road-movie-turned-Broadway-extravaganza, like it’s filmic mother before her, seeks to covers some serious ground.
David Harris, as the central protagonist Tick, delivers his role with charisma and strength. It helps too that he has washboard abs. There is plenty of fit, male, gyrating flesh on display throughout the two and a half hour show and Harris holds his own with the best of them.
On the whole Priscilla is a rollicking evening of warm, feel-good, frivolous LGBT fun. Long in the tooth yes, but if opening night in Adelaide is anything to go by then it’s no less loved by Australian audiences. If you’ve ever wanted to see every part of white Australian culture satirised, soaked in colour, sexualised and given it’s own sequinned costume, this is the show for you.
4 stars ★★★★
Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical
19 August – 15 September 2018
Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
Cast
Bernadette Tony Sheldon
Tick – David Harris
Felicia – Euan Doidge
Cynthia – Lena Cruz
Bob – Robert Grub
Marion – Adèle Parkinson
Director Simon Phillips
Orchestrations Stephen ‘Spud’ Murphy & Charlie Hull
Choreographers Ross Coleman & Andrew Hallsworth
Musical Arrangements & Supervision Stephen ‘Spud’ Murphy
Bus Concept & Production Designer Brian Thomson
Costume Designers Tim Chappel & Lizzy Gardiner
Original Lighting Designer Nick Schliepe
Original Sound Designer Michael Waters
