Dupree or not Dupree, (s)he's great!

No disrespect to Cape Town's hardcore female impersonators, but with Ceri Dupree in town, every other show pales in comparison. Dupree is a well-oiled theatrical machine and for a two-hour long show, he displays remarkable consistency in energy levels, the comedy routines and his sincerity towards the audience. Drag queen or female impersonator - whatever you feel comfortable with - does not equal a barrage of laughs. It costs nothing for a man to dress up like a glamorous woman, but the defining factor of any female impersonator is what comes out of the mouth. Is there a functional brain behind the costume? What is the intent? What kind of story are we going to hear? A successful female impersonation show is all about taking the miasmic mist called outrageousness and refining it into sharp glamorous campy crystals. It is taking camp to its most refined level of being, of presenting a naughty sophistication of the human condition. And oh, how Dupree depth-charges the human condition. An astute observer of mankind, Dupree mocks and nurtures our foibles, our desires and our innate ability to laugh at ourselves. We may not want to all the time, but Dupree demonstrates that laughing at our absurdities - the ones fobbed on us and those manufactured by ourselves - is a fine way to banish the winter blues, physical and psychological. Let's face it: a man in a glittering frock is something to behold - and if he can hiss out fabulously witty and scathing one-liners and relay well-crafted jokes - it makes a for winning combo. The group of girls he pushes out of his travelling closet makes an eclectic bunch, ranging from doing an hysterically funny Nana Mouskouri in a convent, a Dame Edna monologue (beware ye who sits too close to the stage!), to a gloriously statuesque and stately Marlene Dietrich. "I started out as a waitress once ... at the Last Supper. Jesus, could he drink", is but one of the lines the audience will be sniggering about. And pay close attention to Dietrich when she regales us with tales of how she entertained the German boys on the Russian front during World War 2. Respect for the audience comes through a backlit screen, we're privy to his changing process, slipping effortlessly from one personality to the next. Far from irritating, this gesture illustrates Dupree's self-assuredness as a female impersonator and also his generosity in cluing the audience in on how he does it. The first personality we meet is anonymous, just a man in a frock bitching about the state off affairs in murky old London. The comedy comes fast, one barely having time to recover from one of Dupree's many outrageous conclusions before it's on to the next. The entire show runs on the strength of Scene 1, Act 1, the audience baying for more whimsical and saucy observations from this sparkling creature. To employ a threadbare cliché, all good things come to an end, and the Ceri Dupree show is no different. It is a R75 well spent.