Dancing queens

TWO drag queens and a transsexual, in a battered bus named Priscilla, are the principals of Dublin’s Bord Gais Theatre’s new show, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the musical version of the 1994 movie of the same name.

The musical stars Jason Donovan, the cult classic movie starred Terence Stamp, and was turned into a stage show in 2006, wowing Sydney, Canada, Broadway, London. Sporting a dazzling array of outrageous costumes and a hit parade of dance-floor favourites, like ‘It’s Raining Men’, ‘Say a Little Prayer’, ‘Go West’, ‘Hot Stuff’, and ‘Always on My Mind’, it’s wildly fresh, funny and heartwarming as it explores the age-old search for love, friendship, and understanding.

Priscilla is rolling her worn tyres across the UK and Ireland in a superb, full-scale touring show, by David Ian Productions and the Ambassador Theatre Group. It has won multiple awards, including Tonys and Oliviers — for best new musical, best costumes, best set, and best choreography. The Bord Gais Theatre is readying for the big opening, tomorrow night.

Donovan previously played Tick, when the show originally opened in the West End, while Richard Grieve will play Bernadette and Graham Weaver Felicia. It’s company manager Adam Havoc’s job to make sure the show goes on.

“Yes, the buck tends to stop at my door pretty well all the time, whether it’s an injured foot or a missing prop. I’m the hub and I direct the problem to where it can be sorted. When you’re dealing with human beings, and especially actors, there is going to be a different scenario every day. Sometimes, it’s like being house mother to a very large family that constantly needs attention,” he says.

Things go wrong. “It wouldn’t be theatre if it didn’t, but we keep the ball rolling. Quite often, when something drastic does happen, the audience doesn’t even notice. And, at other times, if they do twig it, then they tend to love it. They feel they’re sharing something special, and they tell all their friends, ‘I was there the night that’. It becomes something to remember.”

Bumps and glitches keep the show fresh and energetic. “The main thing is that we play this show every day, sometimes twice a day, with consistency, so wherever you see it, you get the same Priscilla experience,” he says. That includes deconstructing and rebuilding on a weekly basis.

The show finished in Bradford last Saturday night and immediately the technical staff were pulling the sets apart, while wardrobe was packing wigs and frocks, readying for Dublin. Every venue is checked out in advance and the set is adjustable. “From the audience point of view, it may look simple, but it’s like a theatrical jumble sale in the wings, I can tell you, with all the costume changes.”

Those famous costumes. Gloriously-hued platform boots, flowing gowns, feathered headdresses, paint, glitter, jewellery — in stage glam, Priscilla takes the biscuit — and the awards. Flip flops with eight-inch heels anyone?

Performing night after night, in energetic musical numbers, inevitably leads to rips, breaks, disaster. Wardrobe mistress, Claire Tucker, spends her time checking, mending, adjusting, replacing broken zips, doing emergency repairs mid-show. “We do what we can to get them through to the final curtain, and then come in several hours before the show, next day, to fix everything that needs repairing.

If, by a miracle, no repairs are needed, we’re eternally painting headdresses or fixing feathers. There’s never nothing to do,” she says. The main cast of Priscilla have a dozen changes throughout the show, and the principals 18. Then there are the swings (replacements), two male, two female, who cover for the ensemble and have one of every costume.

There are two understudies for each of the principals, and they all have their own costumes, too. There’s a touring wardrobe team of four and they hire six local dressers at each venue. “I give them a lot of notes and try to prepare them for the backstage chaos, but nothing can really,” Adam says.

For the audience, it looks smooth and polished, but offstage it’s panic stations. So many lightning-quick changes, stripping in the wings, tensions at snapping point — Priscilla leaves pantomime standing. “I tell the local dressers they will, inevitably, always be in the way, so to keep their eyes open and remember who they’re allocated to.”

At smaller venues with limited backstage space, costumes may have to stay outside in the trucks and be fetched as required. It’s Claire’s job to make sure not one item goes astray. “I’ve seen these costumes every single day since the tour began and I can tell instantly if anything is missing or out of place.

Yes, it’s a hugely demanding job,” she says, “but, hey, it’s what I chose to do, and I love it, despite all the headaches. And the cast and crew really are great. Everybody mucks in to help when there is a crisis. But sometimes I say, ‘When I come back in another life, it’s going to be as a sound man. His job has to be easier’.”

“Although I think our sound crew wouldn’t agree. It’s such a crazy show to be on,” says Adam. “If you worked somewhere with 50 people, you might know two or three quite well, no more. With this, because it’s a 24-hour existence, most of us share accommodation and, after the show, we all go for a drink together.

We’re a real theatrical family. It’s such an entertaining show that you don’t want it to end. That word entertainment is sometimes forgotten these days. You see people checking their watches and you wonder if they’re checking the time or the date. But, with Priscilla, audiences leave beaming and chattering. That makes it great for us, too. The best thing I ever overheard was, ‘Saying this show is a bit camp is like saying King Lear is a bit tragic’.”

* Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Musical, Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin, Oct 15-26.