Myra DuBois: Service with a Sneer review

‘This show, ladies and gentlemen, is about nothing. It’s an hour of me.’ And, when it comes to Myra DuBois, that’s just as it should be. Dolled up in helmet hair, pearls and animal print and combining the strengths of acidic drag act, shrewdly understated satirist and assured working men’s club compère, DuBois’s key assets are her razor wit and rock-solid control of a room; a free midnight show in a room with a bar is about as a good a setting as one could ask for. Much of the basic material here is familiar, from elements of her Rotherham upbringing to signature songs; never one to let her limited ability to carry a tune get in the way of her love for musical theatre, Myra leaves numbers from ‘Cabaret’, ‘Oliver!’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’ bruised from her embrace. But the set-pieces are barely half the story: seriously skilled and ferociously funny, DuBois nails it the old-fashioned way, tickling, cajoling and bullying in rotation, safe in the knowledge that, if you know what you’re doing, you can knock ’em dead doing nothing at all.

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