REVIEW: THE GENTLEMEN’S CLUB at Soho Theatre 1-12 October 2024

‘Mumbai drag bringing warmth and laughter to a chilly London night’ ★★★★

The Gentlemen’s Club has seen better days. The Mumbai night club is the home of some of the city’s drag kings and is lorded over by a Shammi Kapoor tribute act called Rocky, aka Shammsher Kapoor. (Shammi Kapoor was a major Bollywood star of the 1950s and 1960s).

A co-production between Soho Theatre and the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, and devised by Mumbai-based theatre company Patchworks Ensemble, The Gentlemen’s Club celebrates India’s drag king scene and is essentially a series of drag acts and comedy standup routines linked together by a loose, “behind the scenes”, narrative.

The drag acts had me laughing so hard that at times I struggled to breathe. Shout outs to Srishti Dixit’s Harpal Singh, and as a Bengali, Ratnabali Bhattacharjee’s Mr 55 had me howling with laughter of recognition.

The show was at its weakest during the “serious drama” passages between the drag acts. The writing was expositional, the performances visually static and stilted. This is often a problem with devised shows – they need a serious edit and a third eye to direct it.

Many of the cultural references, the allusions to Bollywood, the passages in Hindi and Punjabi and the Indian physical gestures went over the heads of the English members of the audience, but it didn’t matter. Everyone was having a great time. I have never seen such a mixed audience, from Indian “aunties” to LGBTQ hipsters, The Gentlemen’s Club brought people together with its riotous energy and laughter. As someone who sees a lot of theatre where I am often the only Asian in the auditorium, it was such a joy to part of an audience where nearly half were fellow first, second and third generation people from the Indian subcontinent. It brought into stark focus how exclusionary much of British theatre is.

Given what has been happening in India in recent years with LGBTQ rights, The Gentlemen’s Club feels like an important show, reminding us of both the India we once were and the India that could be. It was a jolly good laugh too.  

The Gentlemen’s Club, Soho Theatre, 1-12 October 2024

Box Office https://sohotheatre.com/events/the-gentlemens-club/

Performers: Puja Sarup, Sheena Khalid, Rachel D’Souza, Amey Mehta, Ratnabali Bhattacharjee, Srishti Dixit

Lighting Design - Bharavi

Sound and Projection - Vikram Phukan

Devised and created by - Puja Sarup, Sheena Khalid, Vikram Phukam with Rachel D'Souza and Ratnabali Bhattacharjee

Choreographed by - Amey Mehta

Reviewer: Srabani Sen

Srabani is a theatre actress and playwright. As an actress she has performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (The Globe), the Arcola, Southwark Playhouse, The Pleasance and numerous fringe theatres, in a range of roles from Shakespeare to plays by new and emerging writers. She has written several short and full-length plays. Her play Tawaif was longlisted for the ETPEP Finborough award, and her play Vijaya was shortlisted for the Sultan Padamsee Playwrights Award in Mumbai.