By Terry Sweeney
This brand new 30th anniversary tour of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert has been on at Liverpool Empire this week (14 March), and what a dazzling production it is.
The film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert was one of my favourite, feel-good movie experiences of the 1990s, not least for the surprise of seeing Terence Stamp as Bernadette, a transgender drag queen, and the stage show is a real reminder of why I loved the movie so much.
The film was a cult classic in Australia and eventually worldwide. It was based upon the lives of three actual drag queens who were initially scheduled to play themselves but were eventually replaced by three ‘box office’ actors, Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving.
The Broadway and West End smash musical uses the film as a blueprint. It stars Adele Anderson as Bernadette, Kevin Clifton as Tick/Mitzi, Nick Hayes as Felicia/Adam, and Peter Duncan as Bob/Preacher, and follows the three friends on a heartwarming trip across the Australian Outback to stage the show of a lifetime in Alice Springs.
The musical is directed by Olivier-award nominee Ian Talbot with choreography by Olivier-award winner Matt Cole, and their Olivier credentials show throughout.
The show opens in a drag club in Sydney with a killer version of ‘It’s Raining Men’ sung by three ‘Showgirl’-type divas, who are then joined by the full singing and dancing chorus for a colourful and energetic routine. After this knockout opening number, we meet Tick who gets a call from his wife asking for his help by staging a show to help her finance her debt-ridden casino in Alice Springs. He ropes in his friend Bernadette, who was an original star of ‘Les Girls’ a famous Australian drag act of the 1970s, and then to the consternation of Bernadette, introduces her to the brash Felicia, the final member of his ‘troupe’,
They buy a broken-down old school bus, which is tidied up and painted and christened ‘Priscilla’, and set off from Sydney to drive across the outback to Alice Springs.
After getting stranded in the outback when taking a short-cut and the bus breaking down, they are rescued by Bob. Bob takes them to a ‘sheep’ town, where they win over the locals and rehearse their act on stage, only to be stopped mid number when Bob’s Thai wife interrupts their show to put on her hilarious ping-pong act and brings the house down.
They move on with Bob’s help and end up in a mining town, where they have a run in with the residents.
Eventually they make their way to Alice Springs for the uplifting ending and fulfil Felicia’s dream of performing in full drag on the summit of Ayers Rock.
Along the way they perform ‘the greatest disco anthems ever to fill a dance floor’ (The Telegraph). Songs like ‘Hot Stuff’, ‘I Will Survive’, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, ‘Go West’, ‘I Love the Nightlife’, ‘Finally’ and many many more.