To Wong Foo The Musical – Hope Mill Theatre

Back in 1994 a struggling playwright called Douglas Carter Beane went to Hollywood and sold the rights to a screenplay he had written, a year later a movie called ‘To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar’ was born. This ‘road movie in drag’ was a modest hit on release, helped by the star power of Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes donning sequins and high heels for the silver screen. Now nearly thirty years later Carter Beane has teamed up with Lewis Flinn, added music and lyrics and brought the world premiere of ‘To Wong Foo The Musical’ to the home of the innovative new musical, Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester.

When Vida Boheme (Peter Caulfield) and Noxeema Jackson (Gregory Haney) jointly win ‘New York Drag Queen of the Year’, with an all expenses paid trip to Hollywood as the prize, they decide to take a young inexperienced ‘boy in a dress’ Chi Chi Rodriguez (Pablo Gomez Jones) along as their protege. What ensues is a road trip to the heart of middle America; after their car breaks down and they are forced to spend the weekend in the no horse town of Snydersville, these three ‘career girls from New York, bring their message of tolerance, trust and acceptance (along with a big dollop of glitter and hairspray) to its inhabitants.

Unfortunately, legal issues prevented Douglas Beane from being able to use many of his own best lines in this adaptation, as a result some of the zing is missing from the book adaptation and skewed the balance of the show. Gomez Jones as Chi Chi in particular suffers in this regard, her caustic observations on poverty ‘we were so poor we got married for the rice’ are now sadly missing, leaving the character lacking in real purpose, Haney as Noxeema gets the majority of the audience laughing with her sharp put-downs and Caulfield does the emotional heavy lifting in the role of Vida Boheme. Beane is at least able to restore his original ending to the story with God being revealed as a drag queen, something 1990’s American audiences would not countenance, but the sassy bite and political edge of the original script was lost in this adaptation.

The decision to take the original story and add new songs was laudable, but only partially successful. The cracking opening (Feel The Light) set amidst the drag pageant was a riot of colour set to a disco beat, introducing our characters amidst a procession of drag queens with fantastic names (Auntie Fascist being my favourite) and even more outrageous costumes from Designer Gregory Gale. However, after this bright beginning the rest of the first half felt stilted, with the jokes landing only sporadically and the seeming desire of the performers to break the fourth wall; a style being more suited to drag cabaret than musical theatre. The mixture of different musical genres present in the score – Disco, Soul, Country & Western as well as traditional Musical Theatre – was eclectic but gave an uneven pace with many of the songs very expositional, simply sung dialogue lacking in inventiveness.

There was an immediate uplift when the action shifted to the town after the interval (Welcome to Snyderville) and the show took on a much more recognisable shape of musical theatre production. With the weight of performance shifted from the three leading drag queens towards the wider cast, characters such as Carol Ann (Carolyn Maitland) and Clara Pearl (Susie Fenwick) came to the fore, Maitland particularly shone with her heartfelt plea to escape domestic abuse and the drudgery of her existence (Maybe Tomorrow). Happy resolution to the tale was reached with an hilarious ‘Spartacus’ moment involving the local Sheriff Dollard (Duncan Burt), an uplifting message (It Will Be Beautiful) and a cabaret style conclusion.

The original movie – which gets its eye-catching title from a dedication on a photograph Noxeema steals from a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn – gave its three leading protagonists the opportunity to take a swipe at the prejudice that 1990’s America displayed to drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community in general. Beane holds a mirror up to not only homophobia but the sexism and racism that was all too prevalent in the ‘land of the free’, the strapline for this new adaptation ‘Make America Drag Again’ draws a direct parallel to the rise of Trumpian politics showing these attitudes still flourish in the America of 2023. The movie was an iron fist in a velvet glove, this musical adaptation was softer in tone, promoting its message of love and acceptance.

Verdict: A show where life is about the journey, not the destination.

Playing until 17^th December.

Reviewer: Paul Wilcox

Reviewed: 26th October 2023

North West End UK Rating: