Review: Priscilla, aavikon kuningatar

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The musical Priscilla – Queen of the Desert is the joy pill of the autumn at the Helsinki City Theatre

Helsinki City Theatre’s new musical Priscilla – Queen of the Desert is funny, touching, colourful, captivating and everything in between!

What colors and what joy! The Helsinki City Theatre has done it again. In the autumn of 2020, it brought the wonderfully delightful musical My Day as a Groundhog to cheer up the people depressed by the coronavirus , and now it responds to inflation and war news with glitter, translated hits and raunchy unbridled verbiage.

Samuel Harjanne, who has directed almost all of HKT’s major musicals in recent years, will continue on an ambitious and international level, working on important themes. Priscilla – Queen of the Desert musical is pure joy from start to finish, although it also goes through dark themes, such as the violence faced by transgender people and the feeling of being an outsider. However, the message that rises above all is tolerance, joy, acceptance and love – and a person’s desire and right to live their own kind of life, as themselves.

Tick, aka Mitzi Mitosis (Lauri Mikkola), who lives in Sydney, Australia, is the father of a little boy, but he has never dared to meet his son Benji. Tick fears that his son will not accept his father’s career as a drag queen. Eventually, however, he dares to take the opportunity to travel to his hometown of Alice Springs to perform, hoping for a soft landing in Benji’s life. Two colleagues and friends, Adam, aka Felicia Jollygoodfellow (Niki Rautén), who is at the beginning of his career, and Bernadette Bassinger (Clarissa Jäärni), who has already left the stage, set off on the journey.

On the way, they encounter a variety of mishaps and personalities, the most important of which is mechanic Bob (Risto Kaskilahti). Will someone find love on a trip?

The City Theatre’s skilled costume designer, led by Tinja Salmi, who is responsible for costume design, has surpassed itself in the colourful wardrobe. The set design (Peter Ahlqvist) is also absolutely amazing, right down to the Priscilla bus. Small technical tricks, from a train swaying in the wind to the “painting” of a bus, once again make you wonder about the mastery of the creators.

Lauri Mikkola already dazzled as Lola in the City Theatre’s Kinky Boots, and now he has Niki Rautén by his side, whose dancing skills are jaw-dropping right from the start. Clarissa Jäärni, as a veteran who has seen life, completes the trio nicely.

Priscilla is enlivening not only in her story and humor, but also in her music. The hit potpourri keeps you in its grip from start to finish. Special thanks are due to the talented orchestra of the City Theatre (conductor Eeva Kontu at the premiere) and the wonderful voices of the Divas (Johanna Försti, Maria Lund and Jennie Storbacka).

The musical Priscilla – Queen of the Desert updates the cult film of the 1990s to the present day, above all, with the choice of performers. In the film, the transgender Bernadette was played by a man, now by a trans woman instead of a man. The musical, which started in Australia in 2006, has a slight obsolescence in the fact that the main characters climb to Ayers Rock, or Uluru. Climbing the sacred site of the local Aboriginal tribe aroused increasing opposition until it was finally banned in 2019.

As a whole, the story is still fresh and touching, and the execution is top-notch. The premiere audience left the auditorium with a smile on their faces and confetti in their hair. Let autumn come, here’s the antidote!