Myra Dubois’ A Problem Shared

Underbelly Bristo Square (Venue 302), until 28 August

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Those familiar with the wonderfully waspish Myra Dubois will know that she has great empathy and compassion for herself and little, if any, for anyone else. That’s what makes the notion of this copper-bottomed drag sensation doing an advice show such a treat: Myra, frankly, couldn’t care less.

At a time when the influence of US drag culture is felt strongly across the cabaret scene, Dubois is something of a standard-bearer for the British tradition. Her

fabulously leopard-printed look owes more to Coronation Street and panto than ballroom or Instagram, and her act is rooted in a rich comic persona and razorsharp audience engagement, honed in boozers. She’s truly in her element swatting away heckles or blithely skewering perceived shortcomings in her crowd. (“Unfold your arms,” she barks at one point, “were you not hugged as a child?”) The opening section of the show revels in this kind of interaction, which walks a masterful line between insult and complicity and turns on a dime from bared teeth to bonhomie, with the occasional pointed political barb lobbed in for good measure.

There’s much more going on in the show, though. Dubois has supposedly been taking on board the teachings of a dodgy self-help guru and promises to cure all our ills through such techniques as projectile mindfulness: “That’s when you tell other people what’s wrong with them.” Her hapless sister Rose helps her field problems submitted by audience members and a different guest

each night. The whole thing rattles along at a formidable pace, punctuated by a characteristically strident tune or two. Whether it will solve every problem in your life is questionable but you’d be well advised to go see.

BEN WALTERS