{"id":918528,"date":"2026-07-09T08:14:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/jinkx-monsoons-judy-garland-musical-proves-drag-is-serious-art\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T08:14:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T13:14:47","slug":"jinkx-monsoons-judy-garland-musical-proves-drag-is-serious-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/jinkx-monsoons-judy-garland-musical-proves-drag-is-serious-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Jinkx Monsoon\u2019s Judy Garland musical proves drag is serious art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Music <\/p>\n<div>\n<header>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-05-22T00:01:00+01:00\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tFriday 22 May 2026 12:01 am\t\t<\/time><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/span><span>\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<time datetime=\"2026-05-21T18:16:34+01:00\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tThursday 21 May 2026 6:16 pm\t\t<\/time>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<figure>\n<p><img width=\"742\" height=\"495\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cityam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jinkx-Monsoon-Judy-Garland.png?w=742\" alt=\"music Jinkx Monsoon channels Judy Garlands iconic style with vintage attire and expressive performance in a theatrical setting.\" fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\"  ><figcaption>Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon as Judy Garland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Jinkx Monsoon\u2019s<\/strong> <strong>Judy Garland musical, review and star rating: \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Death Drop\u00a0the Musical cautiously welcomed people back to the theatre in December 2020 with one major claim to fame: that it would be the first all-drag musical. Six years ago, that felt progressive. <\/p>\n<p>The musical was good, but it played to drag tropes: it was brash, relied heavily on physical comedy, and was literally called\u00a0Death Drop, which is a dramatic fall-to-the-floor move that typifies the dramatic high production value often associated with drag performance.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, drag queens and kings have become fairly commonplace in the West End, although they are often cast in pantomimes or, if in straighter productions, then in the role of a drag queen. It feels groundbreaking, then, that US drag artist Jinkx Monsoon has been cast in a straight acting role as Judy Garland in a leading London production: an homage to the life and legend, written by the British playwright Peter Quilter in 2005.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-jinkx-monsoon-judy-garland-imagined-anew\">Jinkx Monsoon: Judy Garland imagined anew<\/h2>\n<p>The story \u2013 following Garland\u2019s final weeks while suffering from drug addiction under her exploitative fifth husband and tour manager Mickey Deans \u2013 is compelling. Garland is aggressive, arrogant, and stroppy, Quilter\u2019s shocking portrait showing a different side to the woman who is typically glamourised. It conveys the pressure she was under to perform nightly shows to make up for mounting debt (the show is based on a true story).<\/p>\n<p>Monsoon, who is immense, brings the show a welcome new LGBTQ+ perspective. Garland, as a programme note reminds us, is the ultimate gay icon \u2013 her story of overcoming strife is relatable to many queer people \u2013 and so seeing a queer person play her is immensely powerful for a community that has long been underrepresented on major London stages. <\/p>\n<p>Monsoon, who still identifies as a drag queen despite being a trans female, uses dozens of vocal sounds and textures to convey Garland\u2019s temper and vulnerability, and expresses herself with big brush strokes \u2014 more shoulder shrugs and moody swooshes than naturalism.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-jinkx-monsoon-is-astonishing-as-judy-garland\">Jinkx Monsoon is astonishing as Judy Garland<\/h2>\n<p>It is hard to tell how much of that is a drag tendency to exaggerate, but either way, the role is a historical turning point in legitimising the art form. When she belts the numbers \u2013 including, yes, Somewhere Over the Rainbow \u2013 and the lights spell out J-U-D-Y behind her, Jinkx Monsoon is a dazzling feat. If her job is to briefly help a thousand queer people feel they have seen Judy Garland live, she achieves that on multiple occasions on press night. <\/p>\n<p>Known from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityam.com\/drag-races-miz-cracker-on-her-new-london-show-whos-holiday\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/a>\u00a0as a comedy queen, she is of course armed with bite: \u201cYou could have shoved cables in me and powered Manhattan,\u201d Judy Garland says of how charged on pills she is. Liz Taylor, she says waspishly, was \u201cso charming I wanted to run her over.\u201d Monsoon has perhaps more licence than anyone has before to play up Garland\u2019s acerbic bite and her temper, and thank goodness for drag for its unique ability \u2013 and licence \u2013 to show truth.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-cascading-white-linen\">Cascading white linen<\/h2>\n<p>On a set cascading with white linen, like a tiered wedding cake, at the centre of which is a grand piano, Jacob Dudman makes you tense as the cold, calculating Mickey; Adam Filipe is perfectly gentle as queer piano player Anthony, the nondescript queer a thousand gay men transplant themselves upon in the role of Garland\u2019s would-be saviour. Rupert Hands\u2019 energetic direction provides frivolities aplenty; there is always something fabulous to look at. But mostly this is a radical tribute to a radical woman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>End of the Rainbow plays at the <a href=\"https:\/\/sohotheatre.com\/walthamstow\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Soho Theatre Walthamstow<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityam.com\/jinkx-monsoons-judy-garland-musical-proves-drag-is-serious-art\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music Friday 22 May 2026 12:01 am \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Thursday 21 May 2026 6:16 pm Drag Race winner Jinkx Monsoon as Judy Garland Jinkx Monsoon\u2019s Judy Garland musical, review and star rating: \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 Death Drop\u00a0the Musical cautiously welcomed people back to the theatre in December 2020 with one major claim to fame: that it would be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":918529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[131522],"class_list":["post-918528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business-news","tag-podcast-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}