Review by Steve Bennett

The Kinsey Sicks are an a cappella drag queen quartet who deliver everything you would hope and expect an a cappella drag queen quartet to deliver – and do so very well, even if there are few surprises.

They're perfectly dressed in Fifties housewife chic, cross-dressing, not crass-dressing. They've horn-rimmed glasses, a Minnie Mouse hair bow, a beehive, party frocks colour-coded cyan, magenta, yellow and red and a pearl necklace. And if you sniggered at 'pearl necklace' this may be the innuendo-laden show for you. When a urologist is mentioned, as she must, she's called Uma Cockburn. That's the level, and they have much fun with it.

The 'dragapella' outfit – named after Kinsey 6, the ranking on the scale of human sexuality defined as 'exclusively homosexual' – mix song parody rewrites with a few of their own compositions, most notably one in honour of the sainted Princess Di. And they have fine voices all; producing close harmonies that are rich and effective.

Their premise is that they are on a reality TV show, being watched by hidden cameras at every turn – allowing throwaway jokes about the degradations they must go through in the name of entertainment, their desperation to hit the big time, and some barely-concealed bitchiness. Though really, the set-up is incidental.

All four have distinctive personalities, with Rachel, the butchest and probably the funniest of the bunch, turning aggressive on a sixpence. She's played by Ben Schatz, one of the founder members of this San Francisco-based group more than 20 years ago.

Trixie (Jeff Manabat) is the self-centred glamorous one, determined to be a star at whatever cost, Winnie (Irwin Keller) the matriarchal peace-maker who tends to drive what plot there is, and Trampolina (Spencer Brown, not the stand-up of that name) defined mainly for being a lesbian, for the jokes that opens up.

It’s an hour of jaunty high spirits, performed with a handbag full of fun. There’s an occasional nugget of social satire thrown in, but the lure of the pun and the double-entendre is far more powerful – which means when they mention Vladimir Putin, it’s for a brief refrain of Putin On The Ritz.

The commitment to the fake, larger-than-life performances and the dynamic between the characters maintains the buoyancy of a show that’ll provide a fine, undemanding conclusion to a heavy day’s Fringe-going.

Review date: 11 Aug 2015
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Reviewed at: Gilded Balloon Teviot