Dixie Longate takes to the stage the wholesome image of Mobile, Alabama for an hour of drag cabaret and a smile for all. She’s got a love for Happy Hour and Jesus, and sometimes even gets to celebrate them both together. She’s just a trailer park-grown salt-of-the-earth Southern belle with a love for Tupperware that will never die, who has made her way through to the other side of the pandemic to be here with you.
With a smile fixed in place, back teeth in view, Dixie rattles through her introduction and dives straight into her travails with an inflatable baby Jesus she has to hand. It’s not quite rude enough to have you howling, and not quite pristine enough to feel like satire – as if her hand was stayed from going out as far on a limb as the material had the potential to. It doesn’t help that the speed of her delivery doesn’t slow down at all and keeps a uniformly bright tone, losing the rhythm and punch of engagement.
When she steps into some audience interaction the tone and connection comes alive noticeably. Dixie is on form charming the front rows’ socks off and getting some of them on stage for a Tupperware-themed game show-style play-off that’s great fun. There’s energy and vim, spark and delight. It’s only when up there alone, her material becomes robbed of impact and the connection too easily drifts away.
There are some solid ideas in her gingham bag of tricks too. Home schooling her kids in what she knows best – academics not being her forté – as well as lockdown skills picked up, and her own first job in a stripper club. Given space to breath there would have been more laughter, but she simply never stops to give any space for a response from the audience and so very little is given and the oxygen disappears further.
There is a spot where Dixie tells us about her history as the Tupperware Lady, and it works really well. It’s well written, well delivered, and confident. It’s a true glimpse as to why her last show did so very well and what this could have been.
Dixie Longate’s Happy Hour, 19.00
Assembly Rooms, Bijou, 3-27 (except 15th) August 2022
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/dixie-longate-s-happy-hour
