Review: GINGER JOHNSON BLOWS OFF!, Soho Theatre

“You’ve never seen a woman so flammable”

Have you ever been sitting on a stool on a stage, being asked to load a confetti cannon with five containers, one of which containing push pins, that will be shot into the unguarded face of a drag queen? Not many will be able to say they have, but those who attend Ginger Johnson Blows Off! may have the opportunity. 

Johnson, who has been performing since the late 2000s, gained fame as the winner of the fifth series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK last year - many remember here for her impersonation of Barbara Cartland during the one of the show’s challenges. Now that her dream of winning has been fulfilled, Johnson is turning to chasing a new dream -  becoming a daredevil. This “highly-trained idiot,” as the preshow announcement describes her, is taking her shows to new heights, inspired by a circus performer she saw as a child who launched herself out of a cannon.

While there are promises of thrills from the beginning, the show ends up being a bit more silly than thrilling, with the first segment of “daredevil acts” being entirely dedicated to fart jokes, ranging from Johnson chugging Coke and eating Mentos before jumping on a trampoline to drinking what appears to be gasoline and shooting fire out of her bum. I had been entirely unaware that the show’s title, “Blows Off,” is British slang for passing gas, and though the show’s description mentioned farting, I didn’t expect to make up such a large part of the show. There were technical issues at the beginning of the show, which makes me wonder if some potentially more dangerous stuns had to be cut. 

In one moment of audience participation, Johnson goes on a hunt for the bravest person in the audience, immediately scanning the front row to see if any daredevils have chosen to sit there. When none of them suit her needs she moves on to the aisles, before selecting a person sitting dead centre, a reviewer praying to whatever higher power exists that she would not be selected. As you might have guessed, that reviewer was me - a person well-known for preferring the page to the stage. Luckily for me, the experience was a pleasant one, with Johnson being nothing but a welcoming delight, even when the previously mentioned confetti cannon full of push pins ended up being launched into her face.

Johnson truly shines when she is making quips or interacting with the audience, starting from the first moments when she begins saying “Nice to see me” to every single audience member, telling us that yes, this will be the rest of the show. During the Russian Roulette segment, she made quite a few jokes about probability, going from one in five to one in two, which had the hilarious reference to the fact that one in two members of Jedward will be named Edward. There were also a few callouts of TERFs including JK Rowling, which received a large amount of applause as well as laughter from the audience. 

The highlight of the show is the two songs Johnson performs that were written by cabaret stars Bourgeois and Maurice, with one being an upbeat song about Johnson’s rise to fame and another being more of a mournful ballad in which she asks the audience, “How did f*ck did I end up here?” Another highlight is Johnson’s Health and Safety Officer, Jen, who remains on stage throughout the entire show, arms crossed and never cracking a smile. 

 Ginger Johnson Blows Off! is a fun show with a fascinating concept of a drag queen having dreams of being a daredevil, but it struggles to really capture the thrilling energy that it appears to be going for. In a larger space with some more risk checks, Johnson could really become the daredevil she aspires to be.

Ginger Johnson Blows Off! runs until 12 October at Soho Theatre.

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