It is a testament to their brand that the lip-synching duo, Mince, still pull a crowd a decade after their first annual run. They’ve been as far afield as Egypt and Budapest. At one time, they were the prime time alternative corporate gig.
Constant reinvention within a well-worn formula has kept them in currency. This has been no mean feat, nor has time been unkind to drag queens Lilly Slaptsilli and Keiron Legacy a.k.a. Clive Allardyce and Martin van Staden.
Slick lip-syncing, which is much harder than it looks, has somewhat fallen by the wayside in entertainment capitals. The new drag stars use their own voices. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect some added value. Mince has in the past produced dollops of it with sensational costumes, precise cosmetics, tricks with props, audience interactions, hilarious spoofs on the singers they parody and creating subtexts to exploit any innuendo in the songs they send up. This time there is too little of this live quality to the entertainment; the concept (finding earth after a long space hibernation) is arbitrary, and there is far too much deadening video material that would better placed on You Tube.
Fortunately, Allardyce is a wonderful natural comic, and Slaptsilli’s funny bones come to the rescue.
