Ah Christmas, it’s a time for bundling up and catching your local panto. Maybe at the bar, you’ll pick up a little mulled wine to enjoy as you yell, ‘He’s behind you!’ at Clive Martin. But if the Yard Theatre is your local, you’ll be holding said drink while outrageous drag performer Séayoncé conducts you to make suggestive gestures as she sings a NSFW version of, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
This pretty much sets the tone for Dan Wye’s mind-in-the-gutter sense of humour. Some will be familiar with the former Time Out cover star for their shows, Séayoncé: She Must Be Hung! which played at Soho Theatre in May earlier this year, and 2022’s Ediburgh Fringe show, Séayoncé: Res-Erection. In both instances, Wye earned widespread acclaim for their wicked humour, dry cabaret ballads and debucherous theatrics.
This time around, Wye and comedy partner Robyn Herfellow (who plays Séayoncé’s murderous musical accomplice, Leslie-Ann) are having a stab at creating the most sickening Christmas TV show of all time. The result of which is certainly not for the easily offended.
When Séayoncé’s seasonal special gets hijacked by a mysterious force, it’s up to the audience to make it the most disgusting and debacherous show of all time, and set things right. ‘Sit tight if you can, loose if you’ve lived,’ is the reassurance she gives us. Sabrina Carpenter’s A Nonsense Christmas, this most certainly is not.
Classic festive tunes are repurposed into tales of elicit sexual escapaes and acid trips, and you can’t help but joyfully get stuck in when you’re asked to get creative with coming up with new verses for the final song.
Anyone who’s seen Séayoncé before will be familiar with the stand-up element of her shows, and here, she mercilessly unleashes punchline after punchline. ‘I wish I was flexible enough to wipe my arse on the carpet like a dog,’ she says at one point, while relecting on her Christmas wishes. In the same monologue, she talks about the overindiulgences of festive dining. ‘You’ve heard of Elf on a Shelf, well I’ve shit myself,’ she smirks. ‘Poop on the futon.’
Across the hour and fifty-minute long show, you hear jokes about folacio, defecation, Clapham gays, Jesus H (for homosexual) Christ, and cucks. Oh, and there’s a whole singing and dancing number about Santa that, if repeated here, would get us immediately reported to IPSO.
The result of which is an instant occult classic. You go in expecting a Crimbo TV special with not-so wholesome cabaret numbers, and you end up coming away with a tummy ache from laughing so hard. It's just as debaucherous as you think it could be, and then some.
