Prom Kween
Underbelly, Cowgate
17 August 2017
4 Stars
Ripping the heart out of high school musicals and replacing blood with glitter comes this camp classic from the producers of Margaret Thatcher, Queen of Soho. Disco classics pump out as the audience enter, William Donaldson channels the spirit of Ru Paul and is our excellent host for the evening. All this could seem too easy, too obviously audience pleasing. But behind the sequins beats a serious point about otherness and celebrating your queerness.
Based on the the true story of how Matthew Crisson, an American teenager who identifies as non binary, was voted his high school prom queen last year - one week after the Pulse nightclub massacre, Joanna Cichonska and Tim Gardner's songs are witty and catchy. The terrific ensemble play multiple roles, all play Matthew, and the bitches who try to stop him, teachers and parents, with a fine gun toting Police Dad!
It's a show with heart and soul, and a serious celebration of being who you are. We won't be hearing the last of this queen of a musical.
PROM KWEEN TICKETS
Read other reviews from Edinburgh Fringe 2017
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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