The Famous Spiegeltent 24/11/06
Comic Drag acts cannot help but be subversive; it is an intrinsic part of their nature. They challenge the ideas of conservative politics, religion and at a more guttural level, basic notions of sexuality. Drag can be seen as a form of mask that allows the performer to get away with saying more outrageous and shocking things than they might otherwise. Tina C certainly satisfied our need to be thrilled in this way, while being slyly politically astute and informed of her audience.
Tina C is the gorgeously crass and deliciously ironic creation of English performer Christopher Green, whose talents seem to have no bounds. Blessed with a gorgeous female-sounding singing voice, she sang original funny topical songs as well as the odd cover (Tina C has sung Nessun Dorma at the Royal Albert Hall) and included tight political stand-up, as she showed off her fabulous legs in a sparkling ‘Elvis in Las Vegas’ inspired costume. She was so good at the southern American accent that I thought she was an American performer. I must admit I was very surprised at how aware she was of Australian current affairs, including the election we were having the following day. When I discovered Christopher Green hailed from England, I was suddenly less surprised. Christopher has written & performed widely for stage, radio and TV, during the past 10 years, has toured Australia more than once (including officially opening the Sydney Mardi Gras) and has become a popular, regular performer at the Edinburgh Festival. Tina C’s act is based on the conceit that she is a multi Grammy award winning American Country Western star from Tennessee who normally fills Arenas and was doing a special smaller show in Melbourne that she mistakenly thought was booked to be in the Concert Hall, rather than the tent out the front. She did in fact have a lot of fans in the audience, some of whom were singing along with her songs. Just about everything she uttered was with a deep irony and was not politically incorrect at all, (as has been suggested) but very politically aware indeed. The show was a stunning satire on American stardom and the celebrity response to politics and events such as September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. She referred to her tour as being unofficially titled the Anti-Anti American tour, because she felt that the US had been getting a rather hard time from the rest of the world recently.
She had a whole section of material about Australia including a wonderful silly version of what she referred to as the Australian National Anthem, but was in fact Waltzing Matilda (she ended with a line from Advance Australia Fair as a wink to prove that she knew the real one) Most of her ribald songs were presented as strong feminist anthems, including; “Love must have made me deaf, you used to whisper and now you only shout”, “Don’t tell me you’re single, I’ve slept with your wife” and “Take your hand out of my panties, I’m trying to walk out the door”, her encore was a gorgeous rendition of Prince’s “Purple Rain”.
Later that night at La Clique we were surprised by a special guest performance by Chris Green in one of his other main drag character Ida Barr. A panto dame type character, based upon a real female English Music Hall star – 6ft tall red haired Ida Barr – who debuted her act in 1897 but who probably never performed her songs in the style of Hip Hop as Chris’ Ida does. The character was so different in every way to Tina C that it was hard to believe that one young man could portray both.
If either Tina C or Ida Barr come back to Melbourne to perform, I thoroughly recommend them to anyone who likes their comedy wickedly intelligent, politically left, a little lewd and tear inducingly funny.