Jinkx Sings Everything!A buzz of excitement fills the air as you enter the Leicester Square Theatre’s main auditorium and with good reason, one of America’s Next Drag Superstars is in town. With her one-woman show, Jinkx Sings Everything!, Jinkx Monsoon proposes one of the most unpredictable nights of cabaret comedy this side of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and she does not disappoint!
Jinkx Monsoon, the winner of the fifth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, deftly led the audience through the musical ringer. Opening the show without a set list and putting a 90-minute melodic whirlwind together, with the very able support of Joshua Stephen Kartes (an incredible pianist who must have perfect pitch and a musical theatre encyclopedia smuggled on his person), from the requests of the audience.
Highlights included her own take on Ladies Who Lunch and a sultry and hilarious Cabaret medley in which she mounted the front row to serenade a rather handsome attendee in the second row.
Jinkx’s voice is superb; bold, brash and ballsy throughout and she makes her own each number she performs without losing a touch of what made these songs the cult classics they are. Opening with Broadway Baby, of Sondheim’s Follies, she sings that she ‘don’t need a lot, only what she’s got plus a tube of greasepaint and a follow-spot‘ and there aren’t truer words to describe this show. Jinkx, with little more than a face of make-up and buckets of talent, captivates her audience for the duration of the evening regaling them with classic show tunes and funny anecdotes from her time as a professional actor to some of the juicy Ru Girl gossip fans of the show will have hoped to hear.
She is hysterical, with a deliciously dark and dry sense of humour, and the improvised nature of the production offers a fantastic opportunity to showcase her ability to work off-script, ad-libbing her way through conversations with audience members, before rounding off the night with a glorious Judy Garland impersonation leading into a rousing rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Monsoon is an absolute superstar and this show is perfect for anyone with even the mildest interest in show tunes. Do not miss it!
Review by Ben Powell
RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon returns with an evening of Broadway showstoppers chosen by the audience nightly.
An avid Broadway enthusiast Jinkx loves nothing more than belting out a show stopper. And that’s exactly what she plans on doing! In JINKX SINGS EVERYTHING!, the audience will be able to suggest and request their favourite Broadway songs to be performed on-the-spot by this boozy chanteuse.
Her improv skills and memory will be put to the test as she stumbles her way through this unforgettable show. No two performances will be the same!
JINKX SINGS EVERYTHING! AT THE LEICESTER SQUARE THEATRE
Tue 24 – Sat 28 Oct 2017, 9.15pm
Leicester Square Theatre