B-movies are by their very definition inferior quality affairs made on a shoestring – and part of their appeal is the acknowledgement of these limitations. It’s a very apt theme then for this September’s edition of the now legendary OxPHWOARd – which delightfully celebrated budget constraints in bizarre, campy, and glittertastic ways.
Ginger Tart was our charismatic and witty host who opened both halves of the show with a lip-sync set. The first set was an ambitious collage of songs and dialogue excerpts dazzlingly calling back to various b-movies. One such call-back, to Attack of the 60 Foot Woman, involved the stage manager adding a cardboard box marked ‘Bullingdon’ at Ginger’s feet for her to destroy. This set was perhaps too ambitious with Ginger slightly lagging behind each cue, making for a frantic performance, but with more time to perfect it could be a showstopper. It’s tempting to attribute it going wrong to the theme and it certainly set up a relaxed tone for the rest of the evening.
Ginger’s second lip-sync set was more successful thanks to its simpler promise. She arrived on stage dressed in a shark costume (one with glittery lips and false eyelashes of course), to sing to the audience. The set went from odd to fabulously bizarre when Ginger proceeded to emerge from its jaws to sing an oddly moving duet with the shark.
One highlight of the evening were the Oxford Imps players Eaton Messe and Christian Adore. After a slightly shaky start, not helped by unfunny attempts by Messe to upstage, they came into their own with their improvised duet to an audience member. Adore’s singing voice and rousing speech about the power of cheese was a particular delight. I was also very taken with Mynxie Monroe who delivered an incredibly sultry goth Burlesque set. This is no mean feat considering she entered the stage holding on to two tacky lit-up ghost balls.
Headliners drag duo Cinebra also had two sets, and just like Ginger Tart, their first set paled in comparison to their second. Where the former was a confusing sound barrier at times, they were obviously handling more comfortable material later. Their second set featured an excellent song on the “final girl” trope in horror, a Friday 13th parody of Rebecca Black’s one-hit wonder 'Friday' which got everyone in the audience screaming in delight. And last, but not least, a moving song dedicated to Rachel Weisz, to the tune of Eideleweiss.
It wouldn’t be OxpHWOARd without some true oddities. For this we have to thank Roddy Jodhpur’s incarnation as the Demonic Possessed Elevator, in response to the 2001 b-movie Down. Dressed in gold with drapes to symbolise the doors and headband of a floor indicator, Roddy cavorted around to overlaid dialogue, biting off the heads of Barbie dolls in the process. While the first half was entertaining, the novelty did wear off and it would have been good to have seen the set evolve.
Another bizarre act made it a necessity for front row viewers to wear safety goggles. Rubyyy Jones looking like a cross between Ursula and an insect, pierced water balloons from across her person to the sound of a Bukkake version of 'Tequila Song'.
All in all, it was wonderful to see the usually depressingly grotty Bullingdon transformed for the evening into a body-positive, drag-positive, weird-positive haven for the night. More of this please.
