Original take on songs

Performing: Dina Martina puts on a show
5 April 2012

The Soho Theatre has a reputation for importing the weirdest and wiggiest drag acts-cum-comedians from America. But following Kiki & Herb and Taylor Mac, Dina Martina, who resembles the gaudy polyester-clad lovechild of Lorraine Kelly and Benny Hill, may just be the weirdest and wiggiest. And even more bizarrely, also the most accessible.

Martina is the ultimate nightmare karaoke singer, dismembering Duran Duran’s Rio before doing criminal damage to other pop — "off the charts" — classics. When not trashing Bonnie Tyler’s power ballad legacy, Martina, the alter ego of Seattle’s Grady West, galumphs around, hands out novelty "jifts" and eats bolognese.

It could be as irritating as nails down a blackboard yet it works as warped surrealism, with echoes of everyone from Leigh Bowery to Vic Reeves.

Each botched lyric and every malapropism colludes in the creation of this disturbing character teetering on the brink of insanity, pathos lurking behind every refrain.

Is it comedy or is it performance art? Probably a bit of both. One thing is certain. After Martina’s demented rendition of Des’ree’s You Gotta Be, the original will never sound the same.

Until 10 May (0870 429 6883)

Dina Martina
Soho Theatre
Dean Street, W1D 3NE

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