A Cock in a Frock on a Rock. More Schlock.

We saw Priscilla yesterday afternoon.

You can't deny it's good fun, but it was just all so ... Let's put on a show!.

To be sure, the audience loved it. The costumes were entertaining (all the ones you saw in the movie and more), and the music was fun (it's a jukebox musical full of disco classics and the occasional ballad ... 'cause even drag queen can tug at your heart strings, y'know) if not completely uninspired. The chorus boys were buff and waxed within an inch of their life. We saw flesh! (but not too much, of course)

But, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and be a little grumpy (big surprise), it's just not musical theater. It's a souped-up drag show (which people seem to love, especially in the comfort of an uncomfortable West End theater ... you wouldn't catch 90% of suburbia at a real drag show, in seedy club where the freaks real artistes are performing). It's an amusement park Wigstock, with most of the dirty bits covered up or censored out. It's Vegas-lite. It's cruise ship entertainment on steroids.

It's bound to be a crowd pleaser. It's just not anything new.

The sets are ridiculously cheap ... I guess because they spent all their money on costumes and an LED bus (god bless Miss Saigon, where would musicals be without a reworking of the helicopter?).

I blame Mamma Mia (recycle the tunes) and Disney (recycle the movie). People don't want to be challenged. They don't want to see anything new. They want things they know, with bad choreography (exceptionally bad, in Priscilla's case ... yeah, we get it, it's sexual, please go on and do some more pelvic thrusting and pulling your arms back like you're screwing the air) and songs to sing and clap along to. Audience-participation is the new black. I reckon Sister Act will be huge.

Can't we please unplug the jukebox now and create some new shows?

:: :: ::

The post-show entertainment was genius. Dinner at the swelligant Mews of Mayfair with a homicide detective who isn't all too happy that there's only been one murder in her precinct this year. You'd think that would be a good thing, but the poor dear needs some work to do. She's growing weary of knocking out crossword puzzles at the police station, waiting for the phone to ring.

Fingers crossed for a headless body in the back of someone's garden.