Simon Ward reviews Glamrou: Drag Mother at the Soho Theatre

Drag queen Glamrou is the alter ego of Amrou Al-Kadhi, a British-Iraqi writer, filmmaker and performer. This could be called a loosely autobiographical show – you can’t necessarily believe everything they say, but some of the most outrageously unbelievable parts are probably true. Venturing into the drag queen game may not be top of the list of most parents’ career choice for their offspring, but for Glamrou’s culturally conservative Iraqi mother it is completely beyond the pale. The poignant irony here is that Al-Kadhi’s adoption of the Glamrou persona is very obviously an homage to their mother – they love everything about her, including her penchant for expensive jewellery and accessories. One can’t help remembering what Oscar Wilde said about men and their mothers.

In a mixture of comedy and songs, we see vignettes of Glamrou’s life growing up and their dawning realisation that their sexuality would put them at odds with the most important woman in their life. The songs are variable in quality and the sound is not the best, but the delivery is impassioned and very funny at times. Along the way there is time for a few potshots at society and the showbusiness industry for its racial stereotyping – as attested by Glamrou’s litany of real-life terrorist-related roles. At the heart of this performance is a desperately ambiguous desire to be seen, and yet not to be looked at. They feel worthless but need their worth to be affirmed. This echoes their need for acceptance from a mother whose blank incomprehension of their choices masks a repressed confusion of her own. She sees womanhood itself as a state of repression and cannot understand how a man would willingly renounce all the benefits of his gender.

While Glamrou insists on the value of what they do, and celebrates the many successes they have enjoyed, they are also alive to the realities and difficulties of their life. There is an amusing but painfully awful catalogue of ex-lovers. There is an excruciating art project where Al-Kadhi is required to lean into an imaginary repressive Islamic home life. There are the everyday challenges of living in a world which is reluctant to accept difference. On some level, they know that their mother actually has a point, although there is no way in hell they will let her know that. When the slideshow moves on to shots of the young Amrou and his mother, there is an almost audible gasp in the room – suffice to say that she seems to be nothing like the dragon painted in the rest of the show.

When Al-Kadhi emerges out of drag at the end, they seem vulnerable. It is rather affecting to see a glimpse of the man under the wise-cracking carapace of drag. There is a touching moment when they are shopping with their mother, as the pair must have done when Al-Kadhi was a child, and the mother finally realises that there might be some benefit in her son’s chosen career after all. An uneasy truce, then, but a hard-won moment of hope.

Glamrou: Drag Mother is running at the Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE until Saturday 25th January