REVIEW: Mason Moore | MEDIA: Chris Maxwell
LAST NIGHT I attended the first drag show in history at The New Baron of Hinckley alongside my fill in co-reporter, Chris Maxwell, and I can honestly say I was treated to a fantastic performance from the Leicestershire-based drag queen, Fanny Burns.
I was a massive fan of the cut-throat banter and audience interaction throughout the show and the digs, burns and roasts just kept coming – they were nonstop and that was hilarious. The audience knew exactly what they were signing up for when they stepped through those front doors.
What I found even funnier was the fact the audience members knew that they were targets if they got up from their seats at any point when it was not the break, like to order a drink or go off to the toilets.
From here on, they had either intentionally, or unintentionally set themselves up from that point onwards as the next proverbial ‘prime targets’ for Fanny to roast!
Fanny describes herself as “unpolitically correct” and this was evident last night where she split the audience into two halves – one side of the room being the ‘posh’ side of the room whilst the other side were called the ‘council’ side of the room, however the audience took this in good spirit.
One of the jokes that stood out was: “I want a photo with you lot in the [censored] interval, I can’t believe I’ve met so many guests of Jeremy Kyle in one room. Honestly, I am starstruck.”
Burns had selected a wide array of songs in her playlist from the eighties to the modern day era.
There was an audience participation game in the show named “The Advert Game” where Fanny created a game by singing around three or four television advertisement jingles and catchphrases to try and estimate the ages of the people in the attendance, where she jokingly poked fun at the different age groups.
She joked about the pronunciation of the town name and one of the running jokes of the night was the fact she would intentionally make sure she pronounced the town name as “Inckleh” rather than “Hinckley”. Fanny joked how “there is no ‘H’ on the word “Hinckley’”.
Personally, I did not find a time where I felt uncomfortable or out of my comfort zone, I took to the drag queen’s sense of humour quite easily and quickly.
If you are a very politically correct person, you may find the banter and audience interaction in this maybe a little rude and impolite.
I can reassure you that it is all light-hearted banter and the drag queen is trying to have some fun with the audience about society and its troubles and worries.
I found this to be a really good thing to do as the public needs to know that they can still make light of the situations and topics we face day-to-day and it’s okay to laugh every now and again.
I would say for an event with free attendance it was fun, easy to get used to and follow along with. I would most definitely recommend watching Fanny’s drag show if she ever performs in your area.
If you missed the event and want to give it a go, Fanny will be making a comeback to the venue sooner than later where she will be hosting the first drag bingo event at The New Baron on Thursday 6 February at 7.30 pm.
For those unaware of the concept, drag bingo is simply a bingo night hosted by a drag queen.
All thoughts expressed inside of this review are solely my own personal thoughts and opinions. These do not reflect that of Notizie as a news brand, website, platform, or media entity.
Thanks to Chris Maxwell for filling in as a co-reporter for Notizie for the night and taking the accompanying media for the article. You can find him on http://www.instagram.com/_christopher_maxwell_ and http://www.twitter.com/_chris_maxwell_.