ScotlandOnSunday.Scotsman.com – Chitra Ramaswamy
Upstairs in the Gilded Balloon, four excitable drag queens from Melbourne are choosing a wig for me. A flashy red mane is plonked on my head, resulting in a chorus of “Noooooos!”, then swiftly replaced with a mammoth peroxide blonde number. “Very Beyonc?,” says Miss Bunny in approval as Jessica James – perhaps better known as Maria in Australian hit The Sound Of Music Drag Show – approaches, compact in hand (oh dear, at least 10 shades too light) and smacking her over-painted lips in anticipation.
She looks every bit as much of a disciplinarian as Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music, though I’m guessing this Maria probably doesn’t have the same levels of benevolence.
Today, in Edinburgh, the hills are alive with the sounds of Jessica, Miss Bunny, Amanda Monroe and Kris del Vayse, otherwise known as the Manly Sisters. Their riotous show, an irreverent and shamelessly silly send-up of the most beloved musical in history, made a huge splash at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, where it scooped a nomination for the Director’s Choice Award and played to sell-out crowds. It’s the longest-running drag show in Melbourne and now here it is in Edinburgh complete with rubber chickens, a blow-up doll and the most garish set of curtains the Sixties ever saw, out of which Jessica, like the original Maria, fashioned outfits for the group.