Séayoncé: Deja Voodoo is pretty much everything you would hope from a title like that. Performer Daniel Wye takes the audience on a campy, sexy journey to the spirit world, with some lip sync, dancing and bad puns along the way.
The show starts off as a typical clairvoyant show. Well, I say typical. After channelling an audience member’s dead dog and a boy who had ghosted another audience member (who manages to send a dick pic from the other side), a narrative begins to emerge in the show. We learn that Séayoncé is older than she looks, and that at one time she was the lover of the immortal bard Shakespeare (to whom she refers affectionately as ‘Willy Shakes’). She manages to communicate with him, but another bitter ex-lover, Satan himself, traps Shakespeare’s soul in a jewel, and the only way to free it is by completing three impossible tasks. It sounds like a Neil Gaiman novel, except with more jokes about rimming.
To pull off a show this eclectic it takes an expert performer, but Daniel Wye tackles each facet of the show effortlessly. Satan possesses Séayoncé, which Wye plays with a deep-voiced cockney bravado, but often has to switch between this voice and Séayoncé’s flamboyant Received Pronunciation, which he does with ease. Wye is quick on his feet when talking to the audience, and yes, there is some lip syncing and dancing, and wow does Wye have the Crazy in Love routine to a T. I would have liked to see more traditional drag elements like this throughout the whole show, but that’s largely because Wye absolutely nails these moments.
Séayoncé: Deja Voodoo wraps up with a message about pride and acceptance of marginalised people, which is a little on the nose and forced but it goes over well with a tipsy 11pm crowd, and is far more moving than anything in a typical clairvoyant show. If you come to this show hoping to make contact with your dead gran you may be disappointed, but for anyone else it’s an outrageously fun hour.
