Coco Peru, the drag queen alter-ego of Clinton Leupp, trots on to the stage of the Soho Theatre in red wig and retro 1960s-ish dress, kicking off the hour-long show with banter about faux pas she's made at parties. It's acceptable chat from a particularly garrulous friend down the pub but serves as a weak intro to this set of supposedly comic monologues.
Luckily, Peru warms the audience up with tales of woe from her childhood in the Bronx. But despite occasional flashes of ballsy bitterness, too many diversions into fluffy-brained sentimentality prove this show's undoing.
In one song, Coco advises us to 'get up every morning with a smile on your face' as a means of realising our 'inner beauty'. She even croons the title song to Beauty And The Beast. In fact, this show is so gay, in every sense of the word, that when she sings a song from Chicago, changing the words to 'everyone will know about Coco', a homosexual duo in the audience persist in singing the correct 'Roxy' lyrics - to the point where Peru calls them 'c***s'. More of this wouldn't have gone amiss.
Coco is an engaging, likeable performer with some interesting tales to tell but the show is so over-encumbered by cutesy mawkishness that it proves tough-going for anyone without a stomach of steel.
Miss Coco Peru
Soho Theatre
Dean Street, W1D 3NE
