Why I'm Here: cuz God is a Scottish Drag Queen

If you’re going to go up into a place called the Cariboo Mountains, the very last thing you’d probably expect to find is a bunch of actors. The very idea is uncomfortably close to a scene in a Douglas Adams book, or a Monty Python sketch. Mountains, moose and … musicals? 

But in Wells, deep in the interior of British Columbia, this actually makes sense -- because not far away from this sweet little town is Barkerville, a “living museum”-type historic gold rush town where you can see how people lived in 1870. For this, you need scads of  actors -- so while Wells doesn’t have a grocery store, a liquor store or regular hours of any kind, it’s up to its armpits in thespians AND it has it’s own playhouse, The Sunset Theater, which brings us, sort of, to what the heck I’m doing here.

Why would an indoorsy girl like myself trudge into a place where you might encounter moose or bears? A place where, when you hold your cell phone to your ear expecting service, you just hear the laughter of fate on the other end? I’m here because my friend Chas produced a show at the Victoria Fringe Festival called “God is a Scottish Drag Queen,” starring Toronto comic / actor Mike Delamont in the title role (which is  the only role). Even before winning an award for Best Solo Show at the Fringe, they were invited to bring the show to Wells. So I’m here because of a man in a dress. 

In other words, my life never really changes.

I’ve long contended that Canadians are the funniest people in the world (SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers) and Mike Delamont adds fuel to that notion by the drum-full. The drag in this case isn’t drag in the attempting-to-convince kind of even way, or the RuPaul’s Drag Race kinda way ... he’s basically a man in a dress, or, more accurately,  a 6’7” man in an 80’s woman’s power suit, black bob wig and thick-as-haggis Scottish accent, answering some of your deepest questions about religion, back hair and the meaning of life with pants-wettingly funny observational humor and nuances you will remember for weeks. If you ever see this show, I promise, you will suddenly find yourself laughing like a crazy person in the middle of the street when you see someone on an iPhone but only you will know why.  

This God loves monkeys, wants your dancing to improve and has very definite ideas about our place on the evolutionary food chain. Finally. A deity I can believe in.

So my great hope is that Mike and Chas will bring ‘God’ to Orlando next year, possibly for our beloved and long-running Fringe? How awesome would it be to see a double bill of “God is a Scottish Drag Queen,” alongside another (fingers crossed) Jeff Jones “Welcome to Hell” installment? 

Welcome to Hell from Jeff Jones on Vimeo.
If there is a God as smart as this one, it’ll happen.