To Wong Foo The Musical – Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester

Peter Caulfield, Pablo Gómez Jones and Gregory Haney in To Wong Foo The Musical at the Hope Mill Theatre, London. Picture: Pamela Raith

To Wong Foo The Musical continues at the Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester until 17 December 2023.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Emerging in 1995 hot on the heels of the previous year’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (also since redeveloped into a stage musical) To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar didn’t make quite such an immediate splash as its partner in drag-road-trip crime, but has since developed quite a cult status.

Screenwriter Douglas Carter Beane had originally conceived what was to become To Wong Foo as a stage show, but changed direction, and redeveloped his ideas into a screenplay. Was he inspired to do so by Priscilla? Seemingly not, according to his programme notes for this show, in which he explains the eventual transformation into the stage musical now enjoying its world premiere here in Manchester under his own direction.

Also in the same notes, Beane recounts the legal technicalities that prevented him from reusing large parts of the material he had written for the movie. However, it did enable him to revisit other elements of his early drafts. Consequently, this show is a stage version rather than an adaptation, and it will perhaps feel less familiar to the film than diehard fans might expect.

The more snappily titled To Wong Foo The Musical therefore is best viewed for its own merits as a show rather than dwelling too much on comparison with the film. Nonetheless, the signed photograph that gave the film its title is here, along with all the key characters, most especially Vida Boheme, Noxeema Jackson and Chi-Chi Rodriguez, the trio of drag artistes who set off on their ill-fated road trip to Hollywood in a clapped out Cadillac, after Vida and Noxeema win joint first prize in Miss Drag Queen of America and decide to take Chi Chi along for the ride.

The first leg of the journey, until the car conks out, occupies the entire Act I, with the trio arriving in Snydersville just in time for the interval. In Act II there is a change of pace and tone when the people of Snydersville get something of an education from their exotic out-of-towners. Here we meet more characters familiar from the movie, including domestic abuse victim Carol Ann and her violent husband, which provides the vehicle for Carolyn Maitland to deliver one of the show’s finest vocal turns. Other keynote performances come from Alexander Kranz as Bobby Ray, Ayesha Maynard as Beulah June and Scott Hunter as Billy Budd.

But this is a show with three undisputed star roles, and Peter Caulfield, Gregory Haney and Pablo Gómez Jones are brilliantly cast as Vida, Noxeema and Chi-Chi. Caulfield, almost the matriarch, has the poise, Haney the swagger and Goméz Jones the faux fatale vulnerability. All three combine stunning vocals with huge stage presence and characterisation.

For all its underpinning social messaging, this is not a show of dramatic realism – here is a piece of musical theatre that verges on cabaret, reaching out to its audience constantly. There are a host of complicated and, indeed, happily coincidental reasons why a show with such a very American pedigree is premiering in a Fringe venue in Manchester, but it is hard to imagine it finding a better showcase for its unique style and wit, nor a more appreciative audience.

With an eclectic, country-punctuated score by Lewis Flinn and a dazzling array of costumes and wigs from Gregory Gale and Bobbie Zlotnik, plus a top-flight 18-strong cast, this is a show that once again shows off Hope Mill’s by now legendary knack of giving it large in a small space.

Seeing the stage bursting at the seams with movement and frilled tulle, it’s easy to imagine why the company are looking to spread their wings to larger venues for future musical productions.

Nigel Smith