Review: The Shade Pullers & Lash Stackers Social Club, The Wardrobe Theatre – ‘where everyone is welcome and everybody gets involved’

Sitting down to an evening advertised as a ‘drag-cabaret’, you may be surprised to see an 81-year-old man on the stage.

This is unless you’re one of The Shade Pullers and Lash Stackers Social Club’s many regulars, in which case you’d know the club has always been a place where everybody gets involved.

A bit of context: the night is set in a northern men’s working club, hosted by the elderly Paul Marsden (played by comic and musician Harry Humberstone) whose drag queen son Roxytocin has returned to give the club a glamorous makeover. It is an amalgamation of drag, burlesque, comedy and music, intertwined with the familial tension-filled patter of father and son.

Lash Stackers kicked things off after a pandemic-induced hiatus with two Valentine’s Day themed shows. The evenings covered everything from polygamy to self-love, ending with the lasting image of Roxy enjoying a mind-blowing, self-induced orgasm on the stage floor.

Harry Humberstone as Paul Marsden and Roxytocin at Shade Pullers and Lash Stackers Social Club – photo: Vonalina Cake

The crowd was a varied one, fluctuating in age and gender but identical in enthusiasm. The packed audience was no surprise, given that every Lash Stackers event to date (it began back in 2016) has sold out. As Paul hobbled onto the stage with extra fold-out seating, Roxy stomped her enormous heels over to greet innumerable friends, and behind the pair, a neon poster read: ‘THIS IS A SOCIAL CLUB. EMPHASIS ON THE SOCIAL’.

The acts were treated with the same friendly familiarity. The first performer, Dominque Fleek, was welcomed with thunderous applause and quickly forced the crowd to its feet for their first dance party of the evening. The second, after a bar-trip enabling interval, was notably less stiff. Her faultless choreography and comedic timing set a high bar for the rest of the night.

Female drag queen Delirium was quick to meet the challenge. While she may appear to have forgotten most of the words in her second lip-sync performance, she carried it off with little awkwardness, the audience meeting it with cheers loud enough to drown any doubts.

The rowdy audience were almost an act in themselves. Call-and-response cries punctuated the night, while the low-budget prize in an audience-participation game of ‘toss-the-beer-mat-in-the-bucket’ resulted in voices across the crowd maintaining the superiority of pickled onion space raiders over the beef variety.

Photo: Vonalina Cake

Debuting act JUHGUHBUH was met with immediate laughter which only grew after their abstract movements and neon costuming gave way to unexpected punchlines. Encouraging new performers is built into Lash Stackers: a workshop for aspiring acts is in the works, and a space has been reserved for one participant in upcoming summer shows.

‘New’ would not be the correct description the final act, who had travelled five centuries to attend. Henry VIII offered a schmoozing boy-band persona, keen stand-up and a raucous song expressing his annoyance about the hit musical that stars his dead wives – SIX.

Those that attended Lash Stackers left filled with the kind of love Valentine’s Day often forgets: the platonic, community love cultivated when everyone is welcome.

Shade Pullers and Lash Stackers Social Club – photo: Vonalina Cake

For information about The Shade Pullers & Lash Stackers Social Club and details of future events, go to their facebook page.

Main image: Vonalina Cake

Read more: A special brand of drag-cabaret

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