Review | Sink the Pink’s raucous new panto ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ at London’s Selfridges Theatre
By Will Stroude
It’s hard to describe Sink the Pink until you’ve experienced one of their events. After finding huge success hosting one of east London’s most popular quarterly club nights at the Troxy, Down the Rabbit Hole is the “world famous genderfuck army” collective’s first panto, on at the Selfridges Theatre for five weeks.
“Christmas is a camp old time of year,” say the group – and they’re not wrong here. When I told a friend that I was going to a camp panto they were confused. All pantos are camp, surely? Not like this. Sink the Pink don’t do pantomime dames; they do full-on drag. The costumes were bizarrely sexy, very sparkly, and all the makeup was on point, as they say.
Writer and director Ginger Johnson’s turn the Mother Bunny was a fabulous highlight. She delivered hilarious one-liners throughout and played off the giddy audience perfectly. Jayde Adams flourished among the boos and hisses as the villainous Fat Cat, with Rodent DeCay as her rodent sidekick. The chemistry between Jayde and Ginger was wonderful in this rough-and-ready production: On the rare occastion they fluffed a line, the sharp responses had the audience roaring and back at ease immediately. “Will you let me get my fuckin’ line out!” Ginger yelled at one point. Neither relied on lip syncing either, instead singing live as they danced (and nailing both).
Jonbenet Blonde, ShayShay and Maxi More were their three bunny backup dancers. Their choreography was almost flawless and performed with relish throughout, which each’s lipsync solo – as Pinocchio, the Big Bad Wolf and Cinderella – were polished, funny and quirky.
When it came to the plot Down the Rabbit Hole was simple but effective: using panto tropes without overdoing it. The audience lapped up the compulsory “He’s behind you!” and while brief topical references to Donald Trump were included mostly they played off fairy tale cliché. Louis Spence (who was in attendance at last week’s press night) appeared on video as a fairy godmother in typically camp fashion. The Christmassy side was absent for most of it, until the cast broke out into ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You at the end and the snow machines were turned on.
For an 18+ show, I was expecting nudity and some more raunchy action. There was plenty of swearing and some dirty jokes but nothing more. Audience participation was (thankfully) very minimal but used to great effect to keep everyone on their toes. While the Selfridges theatre offers a limited space, Sink the Pink make the most of it: Confetti and glitter flew throughout, while the creative use of treadmills to the sound of ‘One Way of Another’ was genius. The lighting was glitzy and camp, and as for the song choices… they were exactly what you’d hope for (I don’t want to ruin the surprise).
Down the Rabbit Hole shows why the Sink the Pink’s brand of anarchic drag has found such success on the London scene. It’s an incredibly fun show and a wonderful way to spend an hour in the run up to Christmas. (The John Lewis advert has aired so it’s Christmas time, no arguments). I definitely hope this becomes an annual event: it deserves to be bigger, longer and more outrageous.
Rating: 4/5
‘Sink the Pink: Down The Rabbit Hole’ is at London’s Selfridges Theatre on 23, 24, 25, 30 November and 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 December. For tickets click here.
Words: Louis Shankar
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