Harold Thropp, tired panto dame, is on a mission – and it’s not impossible.
Downgraded to dressing room five next to the theatre’s basement boiler room, he has a lot to get off his chest, behind his fake boobs.
Writer Philip Meeks has created a sharp-tongued, witty and endearing character, with the skill of an Alan Bennett, a Lily Savage or a Jonathan Harvey to create devastating one-liners. Dereck Walker delivers them and much else with pinpoint timing and an emotional realism that is truly amazing.
He describes the stage door keeper as having “nose ring, tattooed knuckles and no hope”. Harold gives a delightful resume of the elements of panto – and indeed of acting itself, with the odd quip thrown in – “I even survived Frank Bruno in Rhyl”.
But the object of his disgust is one Jez Buckham, a reality show winner who is playing the bit part of the Genie, now elevated to star status, while Harold as Widow Twankey is suffering death by a thousand line and scene cuts.
While he’s regaling us with his woes, including the death of his lifelong partner Eric, he’s becoming Twankey – make-up, wig, frock, shoes. It’s a lesson in creating a character. And tonight he’s back in his home town – unnamed – to help turn on the Christmas lights at the start of the panto run.
He tells us he had no dad: ‘“but lots of uncles – sometimes two a night”. But his mother didn’t approve when he came out, and so Harold moved in to the then twilight zone of being gay – nicknames, cruising toilets, entrapment, police brutality – the works.
And Harold describes that other bitter consequence of a relationship not recognised – when Eric dies, Harold gets none of their accumulated wealth, loses his home and isn’t even invited to the funeral. But he goes anyway and re-enacts his towering, emotional speech at the service – it’s an electrifying moment in Dereck’s highly enjoyable performance.
And just when you think you’ve got the measure of this piece of theatre nostalgia, we get the denouement – Harold’s revenge on Jezz. It too is electrifying.
Dereck Walker holds our attention every second of the 90-minute show and is both believable and a master of the play’s tragi-comedy.
Twinkle was at the Drayton Arms in Kensington and part of a four-show season staged by Richard Lambert of Lambco Productions. You can catch it in August at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Two more Lambco shows – Boys In the Buff and Love Is Blue play at the Drayton Arms between 18 – 22 July, before Edinburgh Fringe.
More info HERE
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