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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
All Dolled Up
Verdict: Drag queen biography
This one-person show is part stand-up comedy, part lip-synch singing and part life story. Panti herself, one of Ireland's better-known drag queens, struts on very thin stilettos over a red carpet with her logo sprayed onto it, using a video screen surrounded by dressing-room bulbs as an occasional aid.
The lip-synch singing, a drag-queen stock-in-trade, is expertly and passionately done by Panti - the effort saved in actually singing is put into physical actions to match the lyrics. Her stories show no sexual inhibitions, but the show doesn't depend on blue humour - rather on the follies of those with such inhibitions (particularly the supposedly straight 'trannie-chaser' men who she says are the bane of her life, but who still fascinate her).
Her material gets edgier when she talks about being HIV positive - just before offering her glass of water to a man in the front row (he did hesitate, before she took it back anyway). The most touching story was of doing lip-synch to Bob the Builder in the HIV clinic, because of the African children that had begun to attend there in recent years.
Cast Credits: Rory O'Neill / Panti - herself.
Company Credits: Director / Co-Producer - Phillip McMahon. Technical Manager - Jack Phelan. Stage Manager - Chris Nugent. Photography - Ronan Healy.. Producer - Conor O'Loughlin. Company - thisispopbaby.
END
(c) Colman Higgins 2007
reviewed Wednesday 19 September 07 / Dublin
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012