★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Bally, Gluttony. 17 Mar 2024
Sky Scraper (aka John Hugo) is an accountant by day and a drag queen by night, and she’s tall, very tall. In fact, when she races into the venue late for her own show and mounts the stage, she almost gets a nosebleed, and audience members close to the stage almost put their necks out as they strain to look upwards to see her!
She looks very corporate, dressed in her power suit replete with incredibly large shoulder pads that put anything from the 1980s to shame. In the best of drag queen style, there’s more than enough hairspray to hold her wig in style, and her bling and makeup is just … gorge! She immediately brings a wide smile to your face that stays there for the whole performance.
And what a performance it is – everything you would expect: fabulous lip synching with an Ethel Mermanesque lip quiver that creates a draft, high kicks that are so high the light rigging is at risk, fabulous dance moves that are sequenced to a formula (which she divulges so that we can all release our inner drag queen at the next opportunity!), and repartee that is quick, razor sharp, funny, and at times poignant.
The best comedic acts have a narrative that holds the gags, banter, and business together, and Skye Scraper: The Life and Times of a Drag Queen Accountant has all that, although the pace is a little slow to start off with. As the show’s title suggests, it is a tad autobiographical and Skye outlines the tension in her life between eking out a living in the corporate world doing something she’s not really fond of, and living her drag persona alter ego after hours. She wants to be herself and to love herself (and have others love her) for what she is, rather than conforming to whatever norms and expectations society demands. It’s quite touching really, and her sincerity makes it clear this is not just an act. Both Skye and John are on stage, their guards are down, and the struggle is palpable. The writing is intelligent, and rarely does she resort to gratuitously bad language.
Skye engages your heart strings, and when she is done, you are left laughing, but with a tiny little lump in your throat. This show is fertile for continuing development.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 to 17 Mar
Where: The Bally, Gluttony
Bookings: Closed
