Grindr: The Opera review: ‘Satire at its best and most camp’
There isn't a bad performance to be found here.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Grindr: The Opera is a f***ing good night out!
The satirical take on everybody’s favourite hook-up/dating app returns to London at Southwark’s Union Theatre. It follows an extended 2018 sold-out run at Above the Stag in Vauxhall for which the unauthorised parody came away with Best New Musical at the Offie (Off-West End) awards. It later returned to the Vauxhall venue in 2019.
The show follows four Grindr users – Jack (James Lowrie), Don (Dereck Walker), Devon (Santini Zapico), and Tom (Billy J Vale) as they engage in relatable and familiar conversations with one another. They eventually fall into two couples on different ends of the user experience before their storylines ultimately collide in a fantastically camp crescendo.
All of this is overseen by the personification of Grindr, played magnificently by a dragged-up and returning Christian Lunn. Grindr lords over the action, seeing himself as a god and everyone else as his subjects. “You’ll all be mine,” Grindr gloats at the end as the cast sings of “love and lust in the age of Grindr.” The gothic church architecture set design further pushes the religion analogy.
Grindr is also served by his loyal followers, the delightfully slinky and Puck-like Illecebra (James Aymon) and Cupiditas (Grant Jackson) who swan around the stage guiding the characters, who are perhaps actually helpless in all this, around.
Lunn stuns with powerful vocals and deliciously larger-than-life acting as he is awoken from his slumber to offer men connections to one another. Grindr feeds on certain emotions, rejoicing as characters doubt their relationships and consider seeking new thrills, is ecstatic at causing chaos, but cowers in the face of love and the idea of being deleted.
And there isn’t a bad performance to be found here. Each actor gets a moment to shine whether it’s Lowrie’s twinky Jack singing “I want to be your c** dumpster” in a prime example of the show’s camp and unabashed soundtrack. Lowrie executes it perfectly.
Equally strong is Vale who amazes and delights in every scene although his delicate second-act ballad as Tom, in the midst of inner turmoil which the audience sees in full, is a highlight.
Walker provides a surprisingly emotional and touching moment when Don, an older man, laments “making up for lost time,” as he pays for thrills with young men while away from his wife.
Zapico is charming and impactful as the romantic Devon and has a truly beautiful voice (as does everyone here) that is sadly very occasionally drowned out by the band.
Props to Erik Ransom for creating this stomper of a show complete with many a smart and hilarious lyric, as well as a story that feels very real.
Grindr: The Opera is a no holds barred examination of what the app is really like with familiar conversations recreated almost word for word onstage. The show does well to present Grindr as neither good nor bad, just for what it is.
Saying that, the show does well to draw attention to some of the negative and problematic attitudes you can still find on Grindr in 2023 including ‘no fats’ and ‘masc for masc’.
The show also incorporates serious themes such as internalised homophobia, shame, stigma, and sexual health that don’t feel shoe-horned in to give the show some sense of credibility. It’s not needed!
The show is a rip-roaring success and truly satire at its best and most camp.
Grindr: The Opera plays at the Union Theatre until 8 July 2023. Get tickets here.