Disco Divas & Killer Queens

It is always exciting to see a production that has never been seen before as you feel very special in breaking new ground. Given that CWAGMS have recently lost their home of 25 years, it was incredibly brave of them to go with new and unproven show in a new and unproven venue. However, they showed that it doesn’t matter where the stage is, talent always shines through.

It helps when you have a very good writer on board who is able to pen something so good. Could you tell that this wasn’t written by professional authors? Possibly in very small ways but what was so clever was that the subject matter absolutely suited a more home-spun style and some of the challenges of the new venue were perfectly morphed into the production. Dressing rooms not accessible from the stage? No problem at all, we will just use the auditorium and make everyone feel that they are part of the Trocadera night club.

The story was very engaging and so “Blackpool”; the character of “Chelle Fish” alone proves to me that the author knows Blackpool (I spent a good chunk of my childhood there and many a tub of winkles was purchased for me and my brother when our parents were in a pub!). The choice of music was always going to be a crowd pleaser and the story of the underdog coming good against the shady rich guy is always a winner!

The set absolutely gave the impression of a club that was a little faded around the edges and living off its past glories. And as mentioned, the whole auditorium became the set as the cast made use of it during the group numbers, making the audience absolutely part of the action. Some great props, I really liked the cocktails (and I am usually very pro-liquid/make it real) but they really worked. Costume was absolutely appropriate to the setting though to be fair, pretty much anything goes in Blackpool!

From a sound & lighting perspective, given that it was a new venue and a huge learning curve, the tech gremlins mostly behaved well (the odd issue to send the tech guys scrambling), and everything has the potential to be as sophisticated as you would need it, despite the move to a non-professional venue so this bodes well for the future.

There were some great performances across the board with no weak links. Katie Gibson as Chrissy showcased an excellent vocal throughout, particularly when tackling Whitney, brave but very well executed! Her “other half” Jason delivered a solid performance and I suspect will be even better when he believes that he is as good as he is! Kudos for this being just a second performance. Alison as Ivy had us believing that she was quite the nasty old woman and Jess & Isaac as Jess & Dan did that fabulous thing that youth performers do and make us very excited for the next generation (particularly liked Isaac’s solo). Dickie & Roger were hilarious as were Vi & Candy as the worst cleaners in the world – fairly sure Vi is probably still on her fag break and Candy is a cautionary tale about the allure of social media.

As I say, everyone in the cast contributed excellently, Harry’s epiphany and about turn seemed a little quick and convenient though that is not to take away from Neville’s great performance. Chelle & Elvis gave us laughs every time they appeared as did the diva-esque bingo caller and his partner.

The drag finale was hilarious, well aided by the entire ensemble.

Thank you one and all for bringing the show to life.

I would absolutely relish a return visit to see CWAGMS again based on the quality and entertainment value of this production and based on the audience reaction, they felt the same. I can’t compare having never seen a production in their previous home but by the look of this, they have faced their challenges head on and come out stronger than ever – you can tell that entertaining audiences is the aim and they shot true with this production.

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