Bye Bye Reindeer

I'm so sad that The Reindeer was not for life but only for Christmas. OK, so getting home from the East End has been a pisser, and I won't miss the annoying curry touts on Brick Lane, but I've had some fantastic nights of contemporary theatre and the staff were just starting to feel like friends.

My swansong visit to the venue was for Taylor Mac. Arriving on stage in ratty green tights, a tunic, a monstrous wig of whirled up dreadlocks and with glitter lipstick and sequins on his stark white face, he performed his Be(a)st of Taylor Mac show that I saw couple of months ago at Bistrotheque.

The show has grown a bit, he seemed more relaxed and there was more interaction with the audience. I was glad to see he shares David Hoyle's zero-tolerance approach to people talking. Where David will yell for "total fuckin' silence", Taylor takes a friendlier approach - he insists the Chatty Cathy's put some drag on if they want to be part of the show. I bet you can guess which course of action works best.

After opening with If You See Something ..., his public information song, Taylor opened his enormous bag of drag that was soon distributed across the stage. There were many costume changes and Taylor loves to talk about his clothes (and his talent for balancing, one-legged, in platforms) but the outfits are only a tiny part of the act. It might sound strange to say that you forget that the man in front of you is wearing a dilapidated dress with seashells falling off (a symbol of the decline of western civilisation) and has bright red glitter on his nipples, but his dialogue is so compelling and articulate - whether he's talking about protean gods, masturbation or political icons - that his physical form becomes irrelevant.

There was a evocative number about Taylor's friends giving birth to a baby while he was engaging in an unrewarding bout of casual sex. Kind of highlights how one person can be experiencing something life changing while another is doing something hopelessly futile.

A lot of his songs give you cause to think, like the one where he lists people he has loved and forgiven for their shortcomings. This is by turn both beautiful and hilarious when he gets to describing various characters who have blow Crystal Meth up his ass when he was sleeping or tried to force him into unprotected sex by accusing him of having "afrAIDS." He hesitates and agonises before deciding "but I loved him."

My favourite, like last time, was The Revolution will not be Masculinised, where he dreams of a revolution performed by a drag queen and vocalised in treble. At this point he channels Sylvester for the most beautiful clip from Mighty Real.

I spoke to Taylor afterwards and told him his Sylvester clip made me want to cry. He was delighted when I said that and I then made him sick by telling him I saw Sylvester in the early 80s and it was one of the most amazing nights of my life. I guess I should have cheered him back up again by telling him that seeing him has contributed to making my December.

Please God, bring me another Reindeer next year.