BOTI REVIEWS: Alfie Ordinary’s House of Fun

It’s the spectacular Spiegeltent opening night and the site’s Tivoli theatre is packed to the rafters for Brighton’s six-time Fringe Award winner Alfie Ordinary and his House of Fun. A line-up of drag, burlesque, boylesque and general debauchery. 

We took our seats as Alfie took to the stage in full medieval jester costume – a tight sight for sore eyes. Our host for the evening, he opened with a camp rendition of ‘Crocodile Rock’ and got the party started.

First up and fresh from a show-stopping performance on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent was sensational drag queen diva, Ruby Sinclair. Shaking what her mama gave her, her leggy Latin dance routine set the stage alight. It was a yes from us. 

Next up was high-heeled rollerskater and hula-hooping Guinness World Record holder Symone Forever. Artiste Symone skated in heels, pole danced in heels and hula’d with more hoops than we could count. In heels. Her performance was mesmerising and mind-blowing, because doing anything in eight-inch heels is a talent in itself.

The show’s glittering line-up continued with cabaret host and circus entertainer Velma Von Bonbon. Her saucy burlesque striptease while sat on a life-size stuffed ostrich was silly and seductive. She returned later and stunned the audience as she stripped and skipped on a unicycle. Yes, you read that right. Skipped on a unicycle. While International Dancing Slavic SexBomb Alexis Saint-Pete’s lip-syncing performances were so fierce, the slay was real and we all felt it. 

Absolute scenes broke out for the UK’s number one boylesque performer Dave The Bear. Self-appointed DJ, bear and go-go stud, Dave danced and stripped off with plenty of audience participation in a cheeky game of baseball. It takes a real man to get fully naked with only a few fairy lights as a cover-up, and all eyes were glued to his bat and balls from start to finish. He scored high on the line-up, that’s for sure. 

The night concluded with a hilariously wholesome Alfie sing-along to ‘Sweet Caroline’. Sporting another show-stopping outfit (proving that you can look good in sparkly chaps), Alfie Ordinary proved he really was the host with the most. His House of Fun was joyful, debauched, funny and inclusive. We all left with a warm and fuzzy feeling, smug in the knowledge we’d just spent a night with one of Brighton’s finest. 

Alfie is appearing all over the festival: he’s returning to the Spiegeltent with his award-winning musical bingo game show Now That’s What I call Bingo on Monday 29th May (if it’s showing as sold out on the Fringe website, check out the Spiegeltent’s website for more tickets) and he’s also hosting Brighton’s Big Drag Pageant there on Tuesday 9th May.

Outside of the Fringe, he’s also back hosting several Drag In The Park shows at the Brighton Open Air Theatre this summer.

Catch him if you can!

By Christina Angus