Review of the blue alien comedian at Soho Theatre

She looks, well, out of this world, with blue face and towering peroxide beehive, dressed in wonderful 1960s-era psychedelic cropped trousers and waistcoat.

Juno Birch’s shtick is that she’s from an alien world – well, Runcorn, really, but close enough – while insisting: ‘I come in peace’

Yet for all her stunning, artistic aesthetic, Birch offers relatively straightforward drag comedy, quickly shelving the extraterrestrial premise in favour of bad-taste jokes, lip-synching, brutally dismissive comments and some pedestrian observational comedy, the latter of which is especially disappointing for such a distinctive creation.

The analogy of her feeling alien as a trans woman might be obvious, so remains unexplored until it’s explicitly pointed out as part of the show’s rather muted ending.

Still, there’s fun to be had along the way – with solid gags and a witheringly self-centred, blunt-talking  attitude that borrows from the likes of Lily Savage. She certainly claims to chain-smoke like Paul O’Grady’s creation, painting a lovely comic image of herself emerging from the womb in a cloud of smoke, fag in hand.  She also occasionally channels Larry Grayson, running her hand over the table on stage to camply sneer: ‘Look at the muck on here’

Birch promises her live show will be ‘the cunty version’ of what her 500,000 followers have seen on YouTube and there are brutal – if rather artless – mentions of the likes of Myra Hindley or paedophile Catholic priest to press those buttons.

More appealing is the personal material about coming out as trans at a relatively early age, and her father’s ill-fated attempts to instil a love of football in her. These sections are not so broadly comic, but ARE more sincere, giving an honest sense of the woman behind the make-up.

She also raises the question: what if drag was banned? A possibility now more likely with Trump’s second term, although she leaves the consequences largely unsaid. 

However, these more sit alongside weak observational stand-up sections asking what’s the deal with autocorrect or self-checkout machines. (‘What’s next, cooking your own food at the restaurant?’) while a complaint about overcrowding on the Tube feels like just that: a grumble more than a comedy routine. Really, she could complain until she’s blue in the face…

This fulfils the blurb for the show, which she’s some sort of extraterrestrial Karen ‘who’d love nothing more than to speak to the manager of Earth’. 

However, Birch seems slightly adrift between this persona, more familiar tropes of drag performance – which she’s pretty good at, to be fair – and a deeper exploration of who she is and how she got here. Her larger-than-life personality certainly holds this all together in an entertaining hour, while not entirely exorcising the feeling there’s a better show within her.

• Juno Birch: Probed is at Soho Theatre until November 16

Review date: 7 Nov 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre