Writer: Terry Geo
Composer: Will Stead
Director: Paul T. Davies
The publicity for Dragging Your Heels rather gives away the show’s ending; that newly divorced Ben the Builder will become a drag queen. It means that Terry Geo’s show has the thinnest narrative, nowhere to go from the start. A few harmless musical numbers are thrown in to reach a 60-minute running time. But perhaps more problematic is the fact that Ben’s story is thrown into the shade by real drag queen Dolly Diamond, looking and sounding like a wonderfully drug-addled Liza Minnelli.
It’s a dangerous move by Geo and director Paul T. Davies to give Diamond, playing drag queen Tammy Scowls, her own section where she roasts the audience fabulously, coming into the front row of the seats, finding a bad word to say about everyone. Diamond is more relaxed in these ad-libbed minutes than in the stilted dialogue she’s required to deliver for the rest of the play.
Without Diamond’s performance, Dragging Your Heels is too cheesy for its own good. Affable Ben, played by Geo, has started a new job with Callum (Tafadzwa Madubeko), who has just split up with his boyfriend. Ben is impossibly nice to everyone, including his ex-wife, whom he calls at the start of the show. Rather than a builder, he really wants to be a stand-up comedian, but suffers, we’re told many times, from stage fright. A solution to this problem appears when Callum takes him to the local gay bar and its drag queen cabaret.
The three actors wear headset mics, but they are not necessary in such a small venue as the Camden People’s Theatre. But if they have to be worn, it would be a good idea to switch them off when the actors disappear backstage for costume changes. At the moment, their whispers and rustlings can be heard by the audience.
There’s no grit in Geo’s story, but the warmth of the performers carries the play to its clap-along conclusion. And if it’s sequins you want, then Dolly Diamond has them in spades.
Runs until 23 August 2025
Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025
