Words: Rebecca Moore
4 stars
Drag star Kate Butch, of the well-loved RuPaul’s Drag Race, also known for featuring on shows like Celebrity Mastermind and The Power of Parker, brings their original comedy show to the King Dome at the Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh.
Identifying as non-binary, they enter the stage in a giant orange wig and a pink glittered dress that are as cheeky as Kate Butch’s personality is. In true drag style, they fill the show with wit, humour, sexual innuendos, and a larger-than-life persona. But the focus on how proverbs can be used to summarize various cultural and collective human experiences, without binaries or literal definitions, was the key focus for the show, bringing it depth and insight into the freedom of expression, non-binary identity, and how language can be used either harmfully to divide or positively connect us beyond culture wars, identity politics, and social stigma.
Kate Butch immediately puts the audience at ease with a few quick fire jokes, and carried us effortlessly throughout the show – exploring sexuality, identity, adolescence and into adulthood, right up to the present moment. While slightly disorienting at times, it was a hilarious and moving retelling of anecdotes along this journey.
Hilariously witty and full of irony, there is a darker side to fame as a drag star online, and with great visual impact, they present the audience with A1 printouts of their top insulting online comments. As Kate self-confesses – they are petty. This pettiness is put it to full use in exposing the online profiles of their worst commentators. Kate lets us know that was only the tip of the iceberg in a lifetime of insults, death threats, and stigmatization. You can’t help but feel solidarity and outrage at the injustice of this as an audience member.
In a good balance to these darker moments in the show, they continue to fill the room with laugh-out-loud jokes, coming to a poignant ending. So with grace, poetic fortitude, and glittering orange-wigged defiance, Kate proves one can claim their own space no matter what.
Brilliant comic timing, great visual aesthetics and tightly coordinated sound, lighting, and set design; it’s well-worth seeing.
Kate Butch: A Kate in the Hand is Worth Two in The Butch
King Dome at Pleasance Dome
20.00
5-30 Aug