The panto season is over, oh yes it is, but this doesn’t mean that all frolics and camp chaos need be banished from our theatres in the stark month of January. Just when audiences might require a peppy artistic pick-me-up, in sails this “splash hit” from off-Broadway, a loving musical parody of the film Titanic and its songstress supreme, Céline Dion.
Let’s be clear: Titaníque is not the most heteronormative show you will ever see. Liberally suffused with references to Ru Paul’s Drag Race – director and co-writer Tye Blue was a longstanding member of that programme’s casting team – in New York it has attracted a boisterous and predominantly gay crowd, many of whom wear sailor hats in tribute to the (naughty) nautical theme. As the New York Times put it, this is a piece of theatre “best enjoyed with a drink in hand”.
The premise from writers Blue, Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli is this: a group of tourists are on a visit to the Titanic museum, when who should turn up unexpectedly? None other than the great Canadian singer herself who, it transpires, was a passenger on that ill-fated voyage. Cue a dramatised rehash of key events from Céline’s exceedingly 21st century pop-cultural perspective. Thus Rose’s snooty fiancé Cal (Jordan Luke Gage) is a man-child with the Grindr app downloaded and Jack (Rob Houchen) prances around in very tight trousers. Houchen and Kat Ronney, as Rose, have lovely voices, as does Laurxen Drew’s Céline, and the whole thing is infectiously silly albeit overlong; when the tempo drops, the effect on the production overall is worryingly noticeable.
The schtick is simple: Céline keeps inserting herself in moments of intimacy between Jack and Rose. In addition, Rose’s mother Ruth is played by Stephen Guarino as a panto dame on speed; the grandstanding Guarino, draped in strings of pearls, wears a headband bedecked with two model doves named Thelma and Louise. “Did you go outside? This isn’t Sunset f***ing Boulevard,” says Ruth to her daughter, in a waspish reference to Jamie Lloyd’s recent hit production of that musical, highlighting a recurrent vibe of cultural in-jokes.
Céline belts out a variety of songs including “Beauty and the Beast”, Rose embraces her sexual side by serenading a large plastic aubergine and Layton Williams doubles roles as The Seaman (insert an endless seam of jokes here) and The Iceberg. But wait! The Iceberg has decided to come as Tina Turner, complete with big hair and a silver sequinned minidress, and belts out “River Deep, Mountain High” with gusto.
The cast is ebullient and has fun in an improvised section by riffing on the film of Wicked. I was by turns amused and bewildered, but I did not constitute the optimum audience demographic.
Booking to 30 March, Criterion Theatre, London (0333 3202895, london.titaniquemusical.com)
