The Slinky Minky Show @ Brannigans, Thursday 28th March 2002

A drag show at Brannigans, we couldn't resist. Armed with some free tickets and a group of willing friends, Catherine Tonge was despatched to check it out!

"I do love a good drag show, so I happily accepted one of the dozens of free tickets the webmaster received, rounded up some friends and set off for a night of entertainment. Did I get it?…..read on!….

When I say I love drag shows, I mean that when I lived in Sydney (where they’re really popular) a few years ago I went to a few and they were amazing – funny, professional, stunning outfits, great performances. Also ‘Priscilla Queen of the Desert’ is one of my favourite films (in fact the first drag show I saw was in the pub where the opening scenes are shot - brag brag!).

Unfortunately, The ‘Slinky Minky’ experience didn’t exactly match my expectations…..

For a start Brannigans wasn’t exactly the most comfortable place I’ve ever been in – cavernously huge with about as much atmosphere as the aforementioned cavern. Admittedly it’s not my kind of place, but even so.(And WHY was there a very embarrassed looking, very young glass collecting boy dressed in some sort of toga and sandals arrangement??????)

The show started with the compere, ‘Juicy Lucy’, trying to warm up the crowd for the show to come. She wasn’t very funny, and the only trick she seemed to have up her sleeve was getting two pissed members of the audience to dry hump on stage, eeeeeurrrgghhh!! The last thing I want to see is two pissed up people on a works night out gyrating pornographically on a stage! I think even Miss Juicy herself was a bit embarrassed, but she didn’t seem to have any other ideas so she let them carry on.

However, I was optimistic about the show itself and still had some hope.

It was ok in some ways. There was some decent dancing and some of the outfits were pretty good (although they hardly lived up to the flyer, ‘..More glamour than Joan Collins, more sparkle than the Queen’s tiara, more feathers then Swan Lake’). However, the bad far outweighed the god. You never expect drag queens/female impersonators to be great singers, but even the miming was dodgy, at one point they mimed to a ‘comedy’ sketch straight off French and Saunders – they might at least have bothered to speak it themselves! At this point me and my friend were both bemused and bored, so we went off to the cash machine while the rest of our mates finished their pints. When we came back there was a very poor performance Britney’s ‘Oops I did it again’ with unoriginal schoolgirl costumes, we decided to call it a night and went to Oslo instead – which was to be honest a chilled out, comfortable relief!

This was a very strange evening, what really got me was that the performers themselves really didn’t seem to be enjoying the show at all, which didn’t exactly encourage the audience to have fun either.

Sorry girls/boys, I won’t be returning." - Catherine Tonge.