Alyssa, Memoirs of a Queen! – Vaudeville Theatre

Picture: Pamela Raith

Alyssa, Memoirs of a Queen continues at the Vaudeville Theatre, London until 13 June 2021.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

For fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Alyssa Edwards will need no introduction. For everyone else, she’s the outrageously glamorous, outspoken and tongue-popping alter ego of Justin Dwayne Lee Johnson, a choreographer and performer from Mesquite in Texas. Boasting a pair of legs that Cyd Charisse would die for, this Southern Belle is “snatched, waxed and double-vaxxed” for a week-long run at Shaftesbury Avenue’s Vaudeville Theatre.

A multiple state and national Miss Gay winner – and, much to her chagrin, a regular ‘First Alternate’! – Alyssa came to more widespread national attention in the USA after being selected to appear in Season Five of RuPaul’s Drag Race TV show. Despite coming in sixth place, she proved to be an audience favourite and has since returned to various spin-offs of the popular drag competition. She also now fronts her own Netflix series, Dancing Queen, which documents the fortunes of her dance studio back in her home city of Mesquite.

Now, she’s in the West End for a candid one-woman show – well, with four hunky backing dancers, of course. In her two-hour, two-act ‘memoir’, she shares the story of how she rose from the eldest of seven children in a baptist family to become an international drag superstar… while also dishing the dirt on her fellow RPDR contestants.

As you’d probably expect, it’s not a musical, per se, but there is plenty of lip synching. There is a hint of a script, of sorts, written by stand-up comedian Brad Loekle (but “I am the script!”, as Alyssa points out up front), and the whole affair is directed by NYMT alumni Spencer Noll, so it has a definite theatricality to it, also helped by Libby Todd’s spare design. It also has fantastic choreography – not directly credited but presumably provided by Johnson (the self-proclaimed “Spielberg of Dance”!), with the support of on-stage dancer Austyn Farrell, who is acknowledged as assistant choreographer.

For me – an Alyssa neophyte (indeed, I’m a newcomer to RPDR, having only caught the most recent UK series) – this sashay down memory lane is at its best when the theatricality is ramped up: flashy dancing, teeth-sucking sass and thumping good tunes. The bookends of each act truly sparkle, and not just because of the explosion of rhinestones about Ms Edwards’ incredible figure.

Act I starts with ‘They Just Keep Moving the Line’ (from the musical TV series Smash), allowing Alyssa to channel her inner Roxy Hart, lifted aloft in her dazzling red dress by her beefy burlesque boys and delivering the number like it’s been in the cabaret songbook for decades. To close, after an almost Freudian frolic through the star’s psychosexual development, we get a beautiful reworking of ‘Wrecking Ball’ that showers the auditorium in glittering light and shows the more sensitive side to Alyssa, who is almost literally laid bare before us.

Act II opens with the boys lip-synching to Alyssa’s acidic bon mots from RPDR (lost on me but accompanied by much whooping and cheering from the very knowing crowd), before synching along to the very energetic ‘Work Me Down’. Worked for me. More of this please!

Between the performance numbers, though, in the recounting of the memoirs, I found the pace slackening too much. Presumably there’s a lot of deviation from the script – or off-the-cuff extemporising – but I found myself losing track of Alyssa’s train of thought, and while this can be immensely entertaining coming from the lips of a skilled stand-up comedian, I found it bordering on distracting. Fine for the brief waffle between numbers in an intimate cabaret setting, but noticeably clunky under a proscenium arch, where there’s an expectation of drama.

On saying that, I’m not what you’d call a superfan, and around me, the true fans were lapping up every word, howling with laughter and splitting the air with finger whistles. If you know and love Alyssa, this is certainly the show for you.

Otherwise, it’s hard to be objective – the devotees were clearly just buzzing to be in the same room as this leggy legend and primed to enjoy whatever was offered up. But I was left a little wanting. I like to leave the theatre a changed man and didn’t find Justin’s account of his transfiguration to Alyssa and then her skyrocket to fame to be particularly unique or inspiring. Or indeed rude or funny, which is at least a handy fallback when the story arc’s a bit flat.

Okay, there was a nice human connection made when Alyssa talked about encouragement from her grandmother and guncle (gay uncle) but I’d’ve liked a little more of this, to get to know the person behind the Max Factor. A tweet-your-question segment wasn’t particularly enlightening, although again the audience loved it. I was entertained and smiled all the way through under my mask but I wasn’t moved in any way.

Still, brava to Alyssa and bravo to her boys – Austyn, Alex Brown, Billy Sawyer and Luke Vella – but this is one diva that needs a little shaving and tucking… if only in the script department.

Craig Glenday