Review: Sleeping Booty
The Three Sisters Bar, Edinburgh ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A goldfish in human form, a moustachioed princess and a twink prince, just three of the outrageous characters who help make Sleeping Booty, this year’s adult panto at The Three Sisters Bar, a raucous, raunchy and completely bonkers two hours of festive 18+ fun.
Unashamedly anarchic, this dark yet comically camp caper draws on the age old fairytale of Sleeping Beauty in a late-night reimagining brought to life by a six-strong troupe of performers who know how to make the most out of the venue’s postage stamp-size stage.
The story: When the Queen dies in childbirth, Princess Aurora falls into the care of Gwynethere Paltrow, Social Media Influencer and Queen of the Fairies, who quickly bestows the gifts of inner beauty and a great big booty on her new charge.
However, when the evil fairy, Malnourishment, fails to receive an invitation to Aurora’s ‘Christening’ she too pays the newborn a visit. Instead of bringing a gift, she curses the child that, by her 18th birthday she will be ‘stabbed in the booty’ and die.
Aurora’s adopted mother immediately casts a spell to ensure that, should the worst occur, Aurora will not die but fall into a deep slumber from which only true love’s kiss will awake her.
On the eve of her 18th birthday, the curse comes true courtesy of a not quite traditional encounter with a spinning wheel… no spoilers.
While the title character may be called Sleeping Booty, there is only one star of this show, professional drag queen Lacy Rain, whose evil fairy storms around the stage channelling River City’s Roisin at an audition for a role in Trainspotting to brilliant effect.
Rain, who also wrote the script, designed the costumes and choreographed the production’s tightly drilled dance/lip synch routines, is as good a panto baddie as you will see in any theatre, and better than many. That said, they have strong back up from a company that boasts no fewer that five drag acts.
Alicia Tryde, as Princess Aurora, is nicely surreal and boasts a great voice when singing the only song in the show not to be mimed, while Angel Beads’ twink Prince Phill-me is perhaps the most unlikely hero a princess could ask for... or then again, maybe not.
If the laconic, transatlantic drawl of CJ Banks as Gwynethere Paltrow proves ideal for the right-on and nicely waspish fairy queen, so drag king Lavish McTavish makes a boisterous King Dominic, quickly building a ribald rapport with the audience that carries easily into a well executed songsheet laced with rude bits.
Finally, cabaret performer Princess Yaddick steals a scene or two along the way with a ‘Little Nell-esque’ turn as the wonderfully named, Goldie Prawn. Her timing and audience interaction are second to none.
If there’s a skill to producing a family panto, so too there is a fine art to writing and staging its adult equivalent. This one is a gem that captures just the right levels of subversion, irreverence and occasionally downright filth, while still managing to maintain a certain naive charm. It’s naughty but nice bawdy fun for all the family… as long as they are over 18.
Runs until 23 December, Tickets here
