Theatre / Cabaret
Review: Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous
Alfie Ordinary, the Brighton-based drag prince brought his one-man show, Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous, to the Cube. The result was as impressive as it was mature.
“This isn’t a play about being gay, this is a play about something much bigger,” a line from Alfie’s award-winning show, perhaps best encapsulates the show’s beauty. What Alfie did with complete panache was address the question that underlines any modern man’s life, and that is, “Am I man enough?”
Any man could draw something from Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous – and every man should.
Via covers of hits from Whitney and Tiffany, Alfie took the audience on a tale of exploration. Songs were interspersed with a relaxed style of humour that belied the carefully constructed nature of the show. Taking the audience from Alfie’s early days at ‘Madame Lecoq’s Preparatory School for Fabulous Boys’ where he acquired his GCSEs (Gorg Certificate of Sassy Excellence) to his friendship with closeted fabulous-boy, John, Alfie inspects the construction of masculinity.
Educated in a school without gender constructions, Alfie teases out the strange one-size-fits-all template of a man. In an exquisite sequinned school uniform tailored so tight there didn’t appear room for manoeuvre, Alfie used his natural stage charisma to deliver a relaxing, joyful, and hilarious hour of entertainment. The wry one-liners delivered with a sunny countenance were matched with a smooth singing voice. The songs were slow, the humour was measured, but the show felt well-paced.
Without banging away at an overbearing mantra or veering into crass humour, Alfie’s teenage voice provided the ultimate antidote to not just masculine ideals, but ‘masculine’ performers. The show, in its very nature, was a perfectly pitched satirical swipe.
“The sad truth is that Alfie is fictional,” was the show’s conclusion. “For now,” is the conclusion I hope the show can soon arrive at.
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