Are you #Team Hades or #Team Hercules? #Team Ursula or #Team Arielle? Well, although we try to be good most of the time, this past weekend, the Dragadventures team ventured to the dark side.
But don’t worry, we didn’t decide to curse your firstborn or to steal your voice – we only took a trip to Birmingham to see one of our favourite UK queens in action.
Of course, we’re talking about the amazing Mister Joe Black, whoput on an evening filled with the tunes of everyone’s favourite villains for her new show “Touch of Evil: A Celebration of Villainy in Song.”
This show is being toured all over the UK right now and we had the chance to witness the second date at the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham, which in itself is a beautiful venue that took us back to the old glory days of theatre. The stage area is located upstairs and holds around 100 people, which gave the show a very intimate feel. For the added touch of evil, Black set up the stage with every villain’s must-haves: a magic mirror from which she emerges at the beginning of the show, as well as with some papier-mâché skulls and a smoke machine. The queen herself was wearing a dress fit for a villain: a black stoned dress with a green-lined cape that made her look absolutely fabulous.
Joe Black was supported by fellow Brighton queen Rococo Chanel, who for this particular performance wasn’t quite herself, but instead came out on stage as Friederich Hollandaise. Let’s say, the whole audience instantly fell in love with Friederich and we can say that this keyboard-playing, singing, back-talking queen, who stayed in character the whole time – (even when we got to meet her after the show!) was the best sidekick we’ve ever seen.
Ever since we’d gotten the chance to see those two queens performing each on their own in Nottingham/Brighton, we knew that we couldn’t miss a show where both of them would be interacting.
Joe Black knows how to capture an audience’s attention with an amazing singing voice and quick-witted responses which – mixed with her hilarious interactions with Friederich – made us tear up with laughter more than once.
We got to listen to villainy classics such as two songs from Ursula, the soul (and voice) – stealing sea witch from The little mermaid, before we took a trip to the dentist (not a real one, luckily), but the one from Little shop of horrors of course! Of course, some more epic villains made an appearance, but we don’t to give it all away because we’re evil (ok, we just want you to see the show on your own because it’s so worth it!).
At the end of the show, the audience got Joe Black to do an encore for which she chose one of our favourite songs of her’s – yes! – we’re talking about the “Window Cleaning” song. If you’ve never heard that one, you should get your ticket to one of her shows right now, we swear you won’t regret it!
Before the encore, we also got to witness one of our dear friends receive a Golden Apple from Joe herself, because there’s a dress-up competition at every show where the audience member who’s dressed the most “villainy” gets a trophy. At our show, it was our friend Amy who had been to the show in the most evil get-up you can imagine: she went as Joe Black herself and did such a good job at it, that we were tempted to yell one of these “Why doesn’t the big Joe Black eat the small one – Twitter jokes” (you get the picture).
The show ended far too soon for our liking, time flies when you’re having a wicked good time! After the show, Joe and Friederich took a moment to talk and take a picture with everyone of us and were super lovely and nice to us.
All in all, we had the best time at this show and we can’t wait to get to see Mister Joe Black and Friederich Hollandaise (or Rococo Chanel) again!
