JADAR

★★★★☆

Ding Dong! The B*tch Is Back! 11 years after her long-overdue death, the Wicked Witch of Westminster is back, touring the UK (even the North!) as the drag star of a camptastic, CONservative cabaret!

The semi-biographical semi-musical follows Maggie in the lead-up to Section 28, a homophobic amendment that stated that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.

Matt Tedford perfectly embodies Thatcher, right down to the little mannerisms. Introduced via a voiceover, Thatcher walked delicately onstage and handed an audience member on the front row a small carton of milk before quickly pulling it away. The play is stuffed with little references like these; the attention-to-detail, informed both my well-known history and plenty of research, deserves great praise.

Thatcher is one of those people who, as a real-life human being, is a monster but makes for one helluva devilishly delicious character (I say the same about my late maternal grandmother). Like Wilhelmina Slater and Cersei Lannister, you love to hate her.

In this play, she’s an anti-hero, who doesn’t seem to care much for Section 28 but is prepared to sacrifice the gays to prevent her party from ousting her (ironically, they ousted her a few years later anyway) – but then she gets lost in Soho, gets mistakes for a drag queen, and becomes a cabaret superstar.

Thatcher is foiled with Jill Knight, a virulent homophobe and the play’s supervillain, who we are encouraged to boo every time she arrives onstage to the title song from The Phantom of the Opera. Knight is played to perfection by Paul Heath.

Jacob Jackson rounds off the three-strong cast; Heath and Jackson, “Hessel and Tine”, play a roaring rotation of crazy characters, including Churchill’s talking portrait. Their ability to seamlessly jump from one character to the next is impressive.

The script, penned by Tedford and Jon Brittain, is strong and witty, but the best moments are the off-the-cuff ones. The cast’s – in particular, Tedford’s – ability to recover from little mistakes is remarkable. But rather than dismiss or “fix” these mistakes, as one would in a more serious production, the cast hone in on them, which enhances the cabaret nature of the play.

On several occasions, Tedford went completely off book – the most hilarious example being when a man near the front decided to go for a wee. Thatcher was not happy! Later, a man on the front row couldn’t hold it in any longer and sprinted away, but Tedford, eager to rip into him, remarked that they had not enough time, so the twink got away!

It’s clear that the show has been running for a long time (it’s almost as old as Thatcher’s corpse), for Tedford was prepared for anything, including sound issues with his head mic.

The play is, essentially, a “what if”, though it indirectly acknowledges reality by suggesting an alternative “what if” (reality) towards the end of the play. It’s not some liberal fantasy, like Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood (check out my award-winning scathing review), that lets Thatcher off the hook, but rather a subversive comedy that imagines what could have been and celebrates how far we have come – whilst taking the absolute piss out of one of the worst humans who ever lived.

Margaret Thatcher – Queen of Soho runs at the Lowry (Quays Theatre) until September 14.