We Dress Up In Women’s Cloths and Parade Around Mouthing The Words to Other People’s Songs; Priscilla at Leeds Grand

Richard Grieve as Bernadette Jason Donovan as Tick and Graham Weaver as Felicia - Priscilla Queen of the Desert - Photo credit

When I was a lad there seemed to be three types of entertainment (or “turns” as we used to call them back then) down the Working Men’s Club on a Saturday night. There was the bands – the good-time, granny-pleasers who did Mud covers, The Sweet tributes who were a bit arty and rebellious, and the guys who wanted to be in The Glitter Band and were obviously destined for eventual criminal convictions. Then there were the the magician/ventriloquist/comics who were laughable but for all the wrong reasons. And finally there were the drag queens. I felt embarrassed, bored and generally put off by the other acts, but the drag queens always terrified and mystified me in equal measure.

It wasn’t the gender discordance that boggled my mind – I was politically impeccable from a tender age, obviously – It was the clothes. Men dressing up in feathers and frocks and frilly things. Men dressing up at all – I didn’t even consider that these guys were meant to be “female impersonators”, no female of my close acquaintance dressed that way – just didn’t make any sense to me. I’ve always been the sort of bloke whose outfit for the day is determined by what’s on top of the handiest pile, and the only statement I can ever imagine clothes making about me is “well at least he’s remembered not to leave the house naked”. Why make all that effort to get dolled up if you could get away with last week’s Levis and a 5 O’clock shadow?

I still don’t get it. So my first thought when I went to see Priscilla Queen of the desert at Leeds Grand was, crikey … what a lot of clobber! An overabundance of outfits. A superfluity of sequined suits. A gargantuan display of gloriously garish garments. A positive pandemonium of … damn it I’m all out of apparel based alliteration.

But the point is it wasn’t just the sheer quantity. The variety of shapes and designs was so relentlessly and insanely flamboyant that I wouldn’t know where to begin describing them accurately. Imagine there’s been a bit of an explosion in that Roman Furniture shop in Kirkgate Market (my favourite retail establishment in the world, only stocking stuff that hasn’t the slightest utility, remotest function, or scintilla of restrained good taste), a place that takes the phrase “riot of colour” to the extreme. Riot has boiled over into rebellion, fermented into revolution, and then distilled into a dictatorship of the purest ostentation. If you can imagine that you can imagine the wardrobe of Priscilla.

But the clothes aren’t really the point. Even if, like me, you are oblivious to the fascinations of fabric, Priscilla is still a belter. The joy of the show is precisely the thing that used to terrify me in my teens – the vicious verbal banter and merciless tongue lashings that used to put the willies up me and make me duck behind a pillar in case I caught a drag queens eye and became the butt of the joke (yes, someone did offer me a tenner to put “willy”, “tongue” and “butt” in the same sentence, so what! I’m that cheap) are raised to an art form in Priscilla

There’s not one dull scene or dud line in the whole thing so it’s hard to chose an example, but I think my favorite is when Abba-hating, hard-drinking transsexual Bernadette confronts some thugs beating up the wreckless Adam in a dark alley. She looks delicate and completely out of place in her diaphanous white gown but grabs the attention of the gang with a line that’s hardly lady-like;

Stop flexing your muscles, you big pile of budgie turd. I’m sure your mates will be much more impressed if you just go back to the pub and fuck a couple of pigs on the bar.

Frank, the main thug and instigator of the violence, begins to taunt Bernadette, making rather rude gestures and repeating

Come on. Fuck me.

Bernadette saunters over almost coyly as if succumbing to Frank’s manly charms, then delivers the most expert and devastating kick in the balls I’ve ever seen on stage:

There, now you’re fucked!

In the original film version this was a double knee in the balls and was brutally aggressive. The stage version was a single, swift, surgical strike – the difference between Denis Waterman in The Sweeney and Joanna Lumley in The Avengers. I hope the chap who played Frank has adequate protection, and possibly lots of insurance and an extra understudy or two. One millimetre mishap and … well, it makes your eyes water.

Obviously the show is an adaptation of a film and some things just wouldn’t work on the stage (such as the drinking competition between Bernadette and Old Shirl, and the “I’m holding an Abba turd?” scene, sadly), some things don’t work quite as well (Benjy’s acceptance of his dad’s sexuality is much more convincing on screen – watch the crucial moment when Benjy invites Adam to play lego, it’s all in Adam’s facial expression) and some things perhaps ought to have been dropped (I couldn’t quite believe that the infamous scene where Bob’s wife upstages the girls with a remarkable performance involving ping-pong balls was even more explicit in this version! If you haven’t seen it let’s just say she has a trick that is not exactly sanctioned by the British Table Tennis Association). But then other things translate brilliantly (incredibly, Adam singing opera on the roof of Priscilla dressed in billowing silver worked beautifully) and the things that would only work on stage were total magic (the suspended singers were fabulous and the song and dance routines were totally over the top.)

Priscilla Queen of the desert has a great cast, the most exorbitant wardrobe you’ll ever see, songs you can’t help singing (even “fucking Abba” as Bernadette refers to them) and some bloody funny jokes.

It’s so funny you’ll laugh so hard your lashes will curl all by themselves. (Yes, I pinched that one from Priscilla) And it’s on at Leeds Grand Theatre until next Saturday.