God knows we all need cheering up right now: and this archly camp spoof of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic, repeatedly interrupted by the songs and the presence of an air-punching, faux-modest Celine Dion, might be the show to do it. It comes from the American school of wilfully schlocky, sloppy gay parody, packed with pop culture references, always seemingly on the brink of hysteria and collapse.
For instance: Layton Williams plays a generic sailor character called Seaman and later channels Tina Turner as the silver-clad “Iceberg Bitch” determined to sink the liner; and he is still probably only the third most outrageous thing on stage. Titanique started life in 2017 in LA as a one-off concert created by writers Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli, orchestrator and arranger Nicholas James Connell and director Tye Blue, and became a hit off and on Broadway.
Today, Blue’s production still has the air of a cabaret performance, with the cast, band and backing singers occupying a stepped set only lightly suggestive of nautical architecture. A giant, cheap replica of the movie’s McGuffin, the blue diamond necklace, hangs above.
At the start, Quebecoise diva Dion (Lauren Drew) hijacks a tour of the Titanic museum to insist she was on the boat when it sank in 1912. She proceeds to retell the film’s cross-class romance between Rose (Kat Ronney) and Jack (Rob Houchen) so that it’s pretty much all about her.
Each of the film’s tentpole moments – the couple “flying” on the prow and Irish-dancing in steerage; the “paint me like one of your French girls” sex scene; the sinking and the floating-door denouement – is recreated with wry, lo-fi wit.
