On Sunday, the CannibalRabbits went to see “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Musical”. I must say that I really didn’t know what to expect. How do you translate Australia’s biggest road-trip movie into a stage production? You pack it full of big, well-known songs, like: Don’t Leave Me this Way, I Love the Nightlife, I Will Survive, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Go West and I Say A Little Prayer. This isn’t a slavish adaptation, and this version is all the better for that, there is plenty of new material and new twists in the plot.
The costume designers for the original movie, Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner, have been involved in this production and bring some the movies “style” with them. This gives us some really memorable moments like the Gumbys, the dancing cupcakes, and the Minties costumes in the mad, quick-change scene just before the end. After seeing that you could definitely see the cast saying: “Its moments like these you need Minties!”
If this were to happen in any other workplace, having a bus rolling about on stage and some of the footwear would have WorkCover Victoria in an absolute pink fit. Oh, apparently 750,000 ping pong balls had to be ordered in from China for the production. One thing is certain, we both had a toe-tapping good time and spent most of the two and a half hours laughing.
