Scottee said he was bringing together some mediocre talent for his Camp (as Christmas) show – but was he joking?
Geordie drag queen Ginger Johnson introduces Scottee, our compere for the evening, and he breezes onto the Spiegeltent stage, short and round and draped in shiny material with false eyelashes and bright lipstick, he looks a bit like a camp Caesar wearing a sparkly toga. His entrance is accompanied by some loud music and as he shouts for the music to stop and confronts ‘a bunch of gays in the front’ who are not clapping, he adopts a gladiatorial air and so perhaps is more reminiscent of a 1970s wrestler entering the ring. Either way, we are left in no doubt about who will be in charge this evening.
There are four performers, besides Scottee, who are on the bill this evening and they join him for a brief rendition of YMCA, encouraging some audience participation in what he calls ‘gay folk-dancing’ and setting us up for some bad, old-fashioned, camp entertainment. After a bit of crude and rude preamble from Scottee, Ginger Johnson kicks off with a Christmas song about wishing to be a couple in Ikea, returning later to perform a love poem addressed to his celebrity crush, David Dickinson.
Somewhere in between, Dickie Beau lip-synchs – brilliantly but somewhat pointlessly – to a comedy sketch from the irrepressible and very old-school Kenneth Williams.
Jayde Adams does a couple of comic turns that involve some quality singing, and her impersonation of Adele is superb, but changing the words of Skyfall to include a chorus about eating trifle and Arctic roll - ‘it’s funny because I’m fat and I’m singing about food’ - has an air of desperation about it, a bit like a talented act in a search of a concept.
And finally, there is Jess Love who performs a couple of circus-ish acts, one with a skipping rope and the other with hoola-hoops, during which she wriggles out of spangly leotard and tights, appearing naked – briefly – before wriggling back in to the leotard, without the tights, to finish the act. Why?
Scottee changes costume eight or nine times, and while everything glitters on his top half, below the waist he mostly displays little chubby legs in flesh-coloured tights and white ankle socks.
The whole show is definitely naff and while Scottee jokes that he will try to put in enough naff and mediocre entertainment to make it eventually worth the ticket price, it’s uncertain whether he is actually joking. The jury’s still out.
16 & 17 Dec only