JINGLE ALL THE WAY Has All The Bells, Bulbs And Balls It Needs To Be A First-rate HolliDRAG Show To Start The Season At The Green Room 42

JINGLE ALL THE WAY Has All The Bells, Bulbs And Balls It Needs To Be A First-rate HolliDRAG Show To Start The Season At The Green Room 42

Heigh-Ho Friends & "Family"! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in CABARET to bring you all the T.

Friday Night's JINGLE ALL THE WAY starring the inimitable Paige Turner and featuring Santa's adorable pocket elf, Remy Germinario, and the fabulous James Mills (of the equally fab Hell's Kitchenettes) brought a bough-rocking holi-fabulous time to the crowd at Green Room 42. After her sold-out run last Christmas season, Turner has returned to GR42 for another go at her brand of Holiday Magic. And magic is what this show is all about. With a loose script and plot that allows Turner, known as the Carol Burnett of drag, plenty of space to adlib to her audience and improv with her 2 partners, the crowd is taken on a magic snowglobe ride through the Jingle Bells in Turner's brain. Mills plays the spirit of Chrismas Carol Channing Past returned from the "Heavey Side Layer" to give Paige the gift to travel anywhere she desires to make her holiday wishes come true. To help her along her way, slightly slutty elf Dante (Germinario) pops in and out between Grindr hookups at Macy's and asks Turner what's going on in the scene so Paige can clue in the audience. Changing outfits periodically, mixing drag couture in reds and greens and of course, sparkly sequins (Bobby's favorite!) Paige uses the Magic Snow Globe gifted to her by Christmas Carol To travel the world as she searches for her holiday spirit from Macy's to Mexico and back to GR42.

Now, does this sound perfectly silly? It certainly does, but it's a Christmas drag show my lambkins - loosen up. The biggest selling point about Ms. Turner's show is Ms. Turner's voice. Paige is an excellent singing performer with a gift for selling the songs and making up really funny song parodies like: I WANT A GREAT BIG POWER TOP FOR CHRISTMAS (I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas), GRANDMA GOT MOLESTED AT THE AIRPORT (Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer) a hilarious ode to the woes of TSA pat-downs and Phylicia Rashad (Feliz Navidad) all of which elicited gales of laughter from the Queens, Princes & Princesses in attendance. The show is, in fact, chock full of music that the cast of 3 handles wonderfully whether playing it for real or for parody. Top of the hit list for this writer was Mills as Carol Channing suddenly bursting out with Steve Allen's JAM song written for the now-forgotten Alice In Wonderland musical television special deep within the 1980s. All in all, the cast has fun with each other and the audience and their goofs & gaffs only create comedy gold for the cast to play with. So much so that one wishes for more trip-ups along the way. That this show's premise runs a little bit out of gas midway through is owing to the "book's" need for a joke doctor to punch things up in the writing a bit. Bobby does hate to bring the rain with his rainbows my dear ones, but since the show is the perfect 70-minute Cabaret length and started to feel a bit long around Mills' parody of "The Night Before Christmas" (Carol Channing style of course) we need to sprinkle some critic on this critique. At a certain point on Friday night, our laughs ran dry for too many minutes and we started counting lighting instruments on the stage. BUT, Turner brings it all back to funny with another of her hilarious song parodies, THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE QUEENS and Mills' quite sweet, WHERE THE LOST THINGS GO in Channing's voice was a fine lead up to the show's wrap up. A whiz-bang mash-up of everything from JINGLE BELLS through the DREIDEL SONG and even TURKEY LURKEY TIME. Inviting the audience to do selfies and engage all our social networks was a fine and, we are sure, profitable audience building finale. Does the show sag a little bit? Yes, but not for long enough to be a turn-off and since our party on the night had a rollicking good time with Paige Turner, Bobby gives JINGLE ALL THE WAY a festive 3 ½ Rainbows out of 5.

Follow Paige Turner on Her Tweeter: HERE
and on Ye Olde FaceBooke: HERE

See the schedule and get tickets for Jingle All The Way on the GR42 website: HERE

*All Photos By Yours Truly - Bobby Patrick

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