A They in the Manger – Camden People’s Theatre, London

Director: Molly Beth Morossa

Creators: Camden People’s Theatre and Wardrobe & Sons

Trans performance artist and playwright Danielle James writes in the show blurb “I want audiences to come away from A They In A Manger hating Christmas as much as I do”. As if some of us need much prompting. In said aim she and her three fellow artists have failed. This delicious mash-up of queer cabaret, monologue, burlesque, and performance art, is about as positive and life-affirming a Christmas concoction as you will find anywhere.

Drag king Len Blanco, the genderqueer alter-ego of performer, theatre maker and musician Len Gwyn, provides the stand-up comic relief. A former lead singer of Welsh boyband M4 (“the best thing ever to come out of Wales”) Blanco muses about fame, family, and former Christmas hits including “Yule Regret” and “Meet Me By The Ring Road”.

Blanco, bedecked in grey shell suit, fading bleach-blonde combover, and sequined moustache, adds edge to their bittersweet comedy by interspersing some of their originator’s own Christmas memories growing up queer in Cardiff. Granny was “an outer bastard”, their parents “inner bastards”, and their religious relatives prayed they would “buck up and not go to hell”.

A later skit sees Blanco host a Yuletide-set gameshow entitled Family Fight (they could not call it Blankety Blanco for legal reasons) in which two players, randomly selected from the audience, dredge up long-suppressed domestic feuds and “fight to the end of their mental health resources”. It is dark and very funny indeed, even if the meanest the press night participants can come up with is “your jumpers are too fluffy”. No wonder Blanco, like the other performers in A They In A Manger, isso keen on re-framing Christmas into a celebration of chosen family and queer community.

Danielle James offers up a monologue, partly delivered from a chandelier-lit cupboard (the metaphor here is the closet), reflecting on Christmases as a chorister in a rural Irish church. Exquisitely written and beautifully performed this is a hymn to the power of music to bring light into queer lives. Singing makes her “feel like she’s on fire”. “Silence is cold” and “most of church is silence”, she tells us.

Trans pole artist An0maly, in a fetching Santa-themed thong, delivers a heady blend of pole dancing, twerking and risqué burlesque, set to a voice-over describing a queer sex-worker’s typical Christmas. Unlikely as it might sound the piece is full of unexpected joy. Reflecting on one’s queerness while “flashing gash for cash” can, for some, be a liberating experience.

Performer Vijay Patel concludes the show with a video section describing his perfect winter festival, which is basically anywhere Olivia Newton-John can be found. As a nod to the season, the soundscape offers up, among other delights, a drag version of Xanadu, a techno interpretation of Away In A Manager and an angelic choral rendition of Barbie Girl. Marvellous life-affirming stuff.

Runs here until 16 December 2023