Edinburgh Festival Theatre – until Saturday 15 March 2025
REVIEWED BY RACHEL FARRIER
4****
The Bohemians is a long-established Edinburgh based amateur company, but their production of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert has all the glitter and glossof a professional show.
Based on the 1994 film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Priscilla tells the story of two drag queens and a trans woman and their journey from Sydney to Alice Springs.
The three main characters—Greg McCafferty-Thomson as Anthony ‘Tick’ Belrose/Mtzi Mitosis, Dean McAvoy as Adam Whitely/Felicia Jollygoodfellow, and Graeme Melvin as Bernadette Bassenger (the warm heart of the show)—have a nicely spikey relationship that softens into genuine warmth and care towards the finale. If some of dancing in the very large cast lacks the snap of a professional company, the singing is uniformly superb—especially the three Divas, who open the play wrapped in silver and suspended from the stage ceiling.
Albeit this is a musical about a bus that repeatedly breaks down, Director Malcy J. Burnett keeps the pace fast-moving, with dance-floor hit after dance-floor hit, as well as a startling moment involving ping-pong balls. The production moves seamlessly from high-camp jukebox moments, such as Felicia’s Kylie medley and a whole-cast hi-energy performance of The Communards’ ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ at a funeral, with one liners as sharp as a croc’s tooth and moments of affecting emotion. Special mention for Finn Craig, aged 8, as Benji, whose duet with McCafferty-Thomson showed a star of the future in the making.
The out(back)-standing costumes by Kate Dickson—including dancing paintbrushes, the most Oz-tentacious head-dresses, and a dress made from flip-flops—and the fantastic set design for Priscilla herself—make this a vibrant feats for the eyes as well as the ears.
At a moment in time when the LGBTQ community is under attack, this show is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our differences, and what brings us together. Queen of the Desert is a fabul-Oz evening with a tongue as sharp as a stiletto heel and a heart as big as the outback.