Live review: Panti in Vicar Street

Anyone who has ever been to the Panti Show at the eponymously named Panti Bar on Capel Street will be aware that Ireland’s premier drag queen has a biting wit and razor sharp comic timing— her banter with the audience between song-and-dance acts and skits is one of the highlights of the show.
In High Heels in Low Places, Panti takes to the stage at Vicar Street like a glamorous conquering comic colossus, all skintight PVC, towering shoes and disobedient false eyelashes, warning the audience that if they’ve come to see a “national fucking treasure” they’re in the wrong place. The early part of the show deals with her recent past — the “Panti-gate” scandal; being debate in the Dáil while being sued left, right and centre; her “Noble Call” speech at the Abbey Theatre; and becoming an internet sensation and accidental activist.
There may be serious issues but Panti is laugh-out-loud funny, and although she teases the audience on occasion, the punchline of her jokes is most often herself. High Heels in Low Places also mines her life for strange tales — there’s a meeting Madonna at a funeral; accidentally destroying the hopes and dreams of a young Derry drag queen; and an early appearance on The Maury Povich Show with Katherine Lynch to name a few. As Ireland’s queen of queens herself says, “Life, like Tom Cruise, can be weird.”

Panti will perform High Heels in Low Places on 14 June at the Cork Opera House and on 22-23 July at the Galway Arts Festival