Bianca Del Rio: Not Today Satan (Review)

By Maxim Boon

Of all the fabulously contoured, cinched-waisted, shady drag ladies to take the crown on Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Bianca Del Rio might be the most impressive. The big-eyed drag persona of award-winning costume designer Roy Haylock lip-syncs like a boss, cusses like a sailor, reads any and everyone to filth (because after all, reading is fundamental), and can whip up sensational couture looks in her sleep. She’s funny as hell and just as fierce, but still manages to maintain a secret sweet side. In short, Bianca Del Rio is the whole package.

But then again, that might not be too surprising given the years she has spent cultivating her talent. A seasoned comedy queen who learned her craft the hard way, working the bar scene of New Orleans in the late 1990s, Del Rio’s drag is both sky high and low brow. She may be werqing the glossy, polished realness of a pageant fish, but her best (and grubbiest) qualities reside beneath her lace-front wig; the caustic, razor edged, I-don’t-give-a-shit wit that made her one of the most entertaining competitors ever to achieve the status of America’s next drag superstar.

Since winning season 6 of Drag Race, Del Rio has accomplished what many of her fellow Drag Racers have not, in establishing a bone fide presence on the international comedy circuit. Her first major stand-up show, Rolodex of Hate, toured globally in 2015, showcasing her trademark “insult comedy” to much critical and popular praise. Her follow-up production, Not Today Satan, seemed to be in a more embryonic state at its world premiere preview at the Melbourne Arts Centre this week, and it’s not entirely clear if the opening night audience really got a proper glimpse of this new routine. It may be an inevitable side-effect of a situational comic, but Del Rio made more than a few off-piste digressions during the hour show.

In some ways the formula for Not Today Satan – the catchphrase Del Rio coined during her stint on Ru Paul’s Drag race – sticks fairly close to her debut production. There are the familiar “fuck yous” and “mutha fuckers” to the audience, the bone-cutting barbs lancing those fortunate-unfortunates in the first few rows, and the general un-PCness of virtually every line. Lesbians in sensible shoes and cancer patients are particularly in the firing line at the show I attended, although there is a sense that Del Rio’s wrath is largely indiscriminate, merely latching onto the ripest comedy pickings in her eye line.

However, in contrast to Rolodex of Hate, Not today Satan saves the most savage sends up for one person in particular: Del Rio herself. We hear anecdotes of a walk of shame, passing a school of scandalised children while shuffling home drunk; an attempt to fly in full drag culminating in being mistaken for transgender woman, a clown and a terrorist; being trolled online for social media spoilers by irritating Drag Race superfans.

There’s plenty of laughs to be had in this material, but the best comedy comes off the cuff. Throughout the performance Del Rio freely admits that the gig is way off track, but it hardly matters: her comedic reflexes are cat-like, producing comes-backs and put-downs that trickle off her tongue like side-splitting manna from comedy heaven. In fact, in comparison to the improvised gags, the scripted material feels slightly flat, although still, by anybody’s standards, well worth the ticket price.

But maybe there’s some method behind these scripted sections. She may pride herself on giving zero fucks about offending people, but by the end of the gig, you can’t help but feel a surprisingly potent amount of warm, fuzzy feelings for Del Rio. There are no airs or graces. She doesn’t pretend to be perfect, or better than us; she’s a funny lady who wants to make us laugh with the good, hard, bad taste humour we all secretly love. While cracking some wincingly cruel jokes about a cancer survivor in the audience, she simultaneously orders the front of house staff to bring this lampooned patron a glass of wine – “the good stuff I have back stage, not the crap you sell behind the bar,” she adds.

Undoubtedly the scripted material will tighten up, like a new drag queen’s tuck, as this show gets underway in earnest. This first outing did occasionally feel directionless – one started but not finished section, explaining the origins of the show’s title, was a particularly frustrating omission – but ultimately Bianca Del Rio understands her audience. Most of us who came to love her on Drag Race feel like we have an intimate connection with this performer, thanks to the backstage access and candid interviews. It’s this willingness to maintain our connection to this bared-soul, albeit wrapped up in sequins and smeared with lip gloss, that makes this comic such a rewarding performer.

Not Today Satan tours nationally until May 21.