THE DINA MARTINA CHRISTMAS SHOW ☆☆☆☆
Soho Theatre, London
Omicron is threatening to shut London’s theatres once more, and the UK Chief Medical Officer is advising people to restrict themselves to ‘special’ activities this year. That’s two damn good reasons to get down to Soho Theatre right now. If you don’t have family to see this year, then this has to be where you should go for a festive treat. Lucky orphans.
How to describe Dina Martina? Imagine a muppet offspring of Liza Minelli and Mary Poppins. A Spoonful of Sugar sprinkled into a big cocktail bucket of pharmaceuticals. Dina is whimsically off kilter and totally original.
Dina’s delivery is seemingly a stream of consciousness but delivered with verbal tics that are reminiscent of Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek. A penchant to elevate the most mundane of English words with Frenched up elongated vowels and consonants and inexplicably pronounces most of her g’s as j’s makes the most ordinary of langwaarj just that little bit more fun to listen to.
A Christmas Show is not a Christmas Show without some familiar tunes. Here is where the madness of Ms. Martina is at its most playful. Glorious mashups of famous tunes get inverted, subverted, and converted. Let it Snow gets sung to the tune of the Beatles Let it Be. Let it Be gets sung to the tune of Let it Snow. Hey, Jude is replaced by Jesus (pronounced in the Spanish way, por supuesto). All of the lyrics get put through the Martina mouth mangle.
The laughs are plentiful while resisting anything as obvious as a punchline. The humor slides in and out of the telling of the stories in the absurdity of the characters and their circumstances. For those who are not familiar with the elite band of Earthquake Clowns, the creme de la creme of the clowning world, who clamber into undersized planes to rush to support the victims of earthquakes then get your ticket to hear Martina’s first-person recounting of their bravery, fortitude, and dedication. No one else is telling their overlooked story.
Running til 30 December (if luck is on our side) the season for Christmas shows is running out. If you are stingily budgeting your social contacts this 75-minute long one-person show in a small theatre is a treat that you will look back on and appreciate if January has us all back in lockdown.
Review by ANDREW HEBDENQueerguru Contributing Editor ANDREW HEBDEN is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing, and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement, he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre, and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.
P.S. We have just heard that there is a new Covid Lockdown in London and the Soho Theatre will close this
coming Saturday. If it doesn't re-open in time then check out https://dinamartina.com/calendar/ where you
can stream online Dina's 2020 Holiday ShowLabels: 2021, Andrew Hebden, Dina Martina, London Soho Theatre, review
