This is not Disney – just to be clear to any legal eagles. It is, however, a fond nod to the fairytales of childhood, the up tempo songs that keep young attention spans rapt, and the broad and easily identified character developments that let us find no need to deep dive into back stories and just enjoy the spectacle. A sex education spectacle for every gender-savvy woke kink-kid with a romance streak as wide and sparkly as the Brighton Pier.
Fundamentally this is a pantomime story complete with fabulous Hairy Godmother and wide-eyed hopeful hero searching for true love through the medium of audience interaction and sassy songs, with a massive glass slipper-full of heart throughout. The script is fresh and with enjoyable bite, the hirsute Godmother bagging solid laughs throughout.
Some singers are stronger than others but all the cast are excellent performers, getting behind each vignette of matchmaking with enchanting conviction. They’ve somehow managed to find a perfectly pitched balance between the accessibility and guileless open nature of much of the Big Mouse’s output, and a carefully moderated exploration of today’s politics and questions on sexuality, gender and kink. Plus drag’s disarming bite and filth. It’s a perfect storm of sass and subject. If occasionally wavering onto the edge of overly-worthyness.
Gaston’s semi-military diatribe on toxic masculinity is sometimes trying to squeeze too much education into rhyming couplets, and the willow tree’s musical explanation of a menstrual cycle a bit of a stunned one – if surprisingly sweet in its dance of the hygiene products. This is the company’s first tour of this show outside of their native Australia, and it will be interesting to see how these go down in the other locations they have ahead of them.
It’s worth mentioning that the show’s animation genre tropes are utilised beautifully in keeping the storyline central and wholesome-ish laughter at the core. Sharing the fun and the filth, hoodwinking the etiquette of online dating into Aladdin’s classic ‘Whole New World’ duet and Ariel’s ‘Part Of Your World’ into a playful kink exploration – there’s an undercurrent of simply curious joy here. The choreography too is familiar, using strong shapes that could have jumped right off of the painted screen, along with the odd tableau cunningly set up, perverting the sweetness of the tone and costumes with a smile and a cheeky wink.
At its core, this parody is packed full of pun fist-bumps, magnificent outfits, and a doubled-down safe space for what are actually quite complex ideas. Any prospect of shaming has been acid-stripped out, leaving only all the pith and heart of the drag kings and queens and everyone else inbetween in high camp technicolour. Bonza.
