Send in the Clowns - Unpopular

Unapologetic, loud, full of sass, and voluptuous fun, Send In The Clowns: Unpopular is a celebration of musical theatre, queerness, inclusion, and empowerment, making it anything but unpopular with tonights audience at Hope Mill Theatre.  From the uniquely creative brains of Birmingham based Queer performance company Fatt Projects, Unpopular is a heady mix of talent, laughter, utter daftness, and showtunes, packaged together with a refreshing earthy grit of authenticity and pride.  There’s no pretentious nature, no affectations, just a raw honesty grounded in knowing exactly who they are.  Their intention is clear – queer joy and inclusion is a wonderful thing and has huge, untapped potential to educate, enhance, and embrace all communities together, to celebrate yourself exactly as you are!

I’d say that perhaps the best way to describe Send In The Clowns: Unpopular is a brilliantly unpredictable, raucous, musical theatre revue, presented with all the colour, sparkles, and fabulousness of a queer theatre company.  But in all honesty, that makes it sound way tamer than it actually is!  This is a show to be experienced, to be involved in, to absorb, let go, embrace, and scream if you wanna go faster!!  I can say with utter joy that this show knows its musicals inside out, so if you are a musical theatre nerd like me, you will have found your people!  So, shimmy those shoulders, jazz those hands, and 5,6,7,8 yourself through a back catalogue of absolute classics ranging from Wicked, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, The Little Mermaid, Hamilton, Jekyll & Hyde, Miss Saigon, and Les Mis to name but a few.  Add in plenty of quick wit, comedic skills, and devilishly delicious digs along the way, and you may find a new rendition of your favourite songs that you never knew you needed to hear! 

Whilst some of the ‘fat’ jokes seemed over egged and started to feel a little less funny with each persistence, and even though it turned out that they were leading up to something, I felt they could have been halved and ironically benefitted from the less is more idea. But with improvisation, audience singalongs, queer clown innuendo, interpretive commentary, creative reimagining’s, and an abundance of artistic interpretation, you truly never knew what to expect next!  And what a fabulous place to be in, surrounded by warmth, laughter, and the gift of being to exhale, let go of life, and just have fun!     

The first act offers up the impromptu revue, with some brilliantly bonkers moments.  The premise of them having no show prepared is set up with an opening of utter daftness that immediately grabs your attention.  I think this would have maintained its impact more had it been a tad shorter, as it felt like over telling the joke a little bit, but this is a small matter in an otherwise brilliant show.  Imagine Miss Saigon’s helicopter, the Phantoms chandelier, and The Lion Kings pride rock all in one scene, topped off by gorgeous four-part harmony on Les Mis’ barricades, only the revolution is made up of clowns and Paddington Bear!  Next thing, you are starring in Phantom yourself, cast as either Christine or the OG masked singer himself!  Each performer is given the space to shine, in the midst of their genuine affection for each other and the chaos that ensues when they are all together.  The second act is an abridged version of Wicked (interpreted in a way only the clowns can, and absolutely, categorically no longer than 20 minutes for legal reasons!)  But this version of Wicked may look and sound a little different to any you’ve seen before!  As well as an interactive feature which allows the audience to vote on whether we will get an Idina or Cynthia riff at the end of Defying Gravity, my favourite moment had to be the inclusion of Liza Minnelli who arrived by creating a porthole through excessive pirouetting in order to search for Dorothy, aka her mum Judy Garland!  Add to that a Fosse inspired tornado and I was lapping it up!    

I have seen Fatt Projects clowns popping up all over social media and their comradery has always made me stop doom scrolling, watch, and laugh, so I was thrilled to be able to be in their orbit tonight.  Hosted by award-winning cabaret artist, and self-proclaimed hot-mess Fatt Butcher, these clowns aren’t fooling around when it comes to their craft, and though it’s true that the format, the innuendoes, and the pure filth that is hot-glue gunned throughout the show, won’t be to everyone’s taste, there’s way more who would have felt cheated if it wasn’t there!  It’s a celebration of queer community, a place where campness is a superpower, and where this group of clowns describe themselves as ‘full fat’ performers!  Fatt Butcher is joined by Alanna Boden, Dahliah Rivers, and Blu Romantic, coming together with exquisite harmonies to remind us that they are not just clowning around, but have the chops to back it up!  Each clown has their moment in the spotlight.  Fatt Butcher gives an incredible rendition of ‘This Is The Moment’ from Jekyll & Hyde,  Alanna Boden silences the theatre with a powerful delivery of ‘Movie In My Mind’ from Miss Saigon, Dahliah Rivers gives a great comedic performance of ‘Part Of Your World’ from The Little Mermaid, and Blu Romantic has the whole audience bopping along with their brilliant version of ‘You’ll Be Back’ from Hamilton, whilst mimicking Donald Trump!

Send In The Clowns: Unpopular is alive with personality, making this a visceral, pulsating show like no other.  It has its own identity, and we are all welcomed to rejoice in their pride.  The result is a show that, even if just for its duration, creates connectivity between people from all walks of life.  We were all one community during this show, all leaving our dramas, our fears, our worries outside to come together and rejoice, laugh, and be clowns.  The hope is, if we can feel this through a show, it means it is possible to feel it, and we will all carry forward with a momentum to do better, to be better.  Like all complex humans, the show is also its own paradox, a love letter to musical theatre that also mocks its flaws, whilst simultaneously using it to highlight the insanity of the world’s politics and even lovingly mock the over emotive genre in the same way you might tease a sibling.  Choosing to produce the show on a small scale budget equally highlights how the monetary side of theatre, and by extension - ticket prices, are often getting out of control, and reminds us what can be achieved by taking us back to the beating heart of what theatre can be when you take commercialism out of the picture.  It allows the premise of the show, that a group of performers have turned up with no actual show to perform and so they create one right in front of our eyes, the space to breathe and grow, supporting their ethos of invitation, demonstration, transformation, and celebration, one confetti canon at a time!