"Trinidad is a very, very camp nation. The butchest men in Trinidad are camp," remarks Felix Cross, the composer of this bizarre show, in a programme note.
Such a statement is, I suppose, as good a way as any to introduce a musical that sees a Port of Spain drag queen performing Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, Bollywood-style.
The essential point that Cross and writer Christopher Rodriguez labour to put across is that their homeland can revel in the anarchic spirit and flamboyant
dressing of carnival, yet still class the spectacle of men got up in women's clothing as gross indecency.
Any coherent message is, however, lost in a dazzle of sequins and at least 20 pages of script too many.
In Miss Miller's run-down bar, MC Suzy (né Harold) presides over the "first-ever drag cabaret". Five "ladies" sit in the cramped dressing room, preparing to parade their unique art in so public a setting. Tempers flare and stilettos and nerves wobble as the evening, and the threat of a police raid, advance.
Regrets, they've had a few, these queens and nothing is going to stop them from mentioning them time and again. Their situations might well also be elaborated on in the meagre four calypso-influenced original songs, but the pre-recorded backing tracks are amplified to such a volume that it is impossible to be sure.
What can never be questioned is the gusto with which the actors attack their parts in Paulette Randall's necessarily high-octane production.
Ashley Campbell makes his Betty Boo the most prima of all backstage donnas and just when it seems the levels of camp can be raised no further, on comes Sandra Bee as Harold's magnificently pantomime-style estranged wife Leandra. Unfortunately, the resolution, like too much of what precedes it, is a drag.
Until 7 May. Information: 020 8534 0310.
High Heel Parrotfish!
