End of The Rainbow - Soho Theatre Walthamstow ★★★★★

In late 1968, Judy Garland was running out of road, out of money and out of chances. Years of tax problems, failed marriages, cancelled appearances, and a lifetime’s dependence on alcohol and pills had left her nearly bankrupt. The Talk of the Town, one of the most glamorous nightclub venues in London at the time, offered Garland a lucrative contract and the possibility of a comeback before wealthy audiences and celebrity admirers. The engagement was one of the most fiercely talked-about entertainment events of the season – and in 2005, it became the basis of Peter Quilter‘s play, End of The Rainbow.

Switching between the suite in the Ritz Hotel where Judy is staying (and insists is smaller than where she’s stayed on previous visits) and the live shows of varying quality at The Talk of the Town, the script is as hit and miss as Judy’s performances on the infamous run. When Quilter gets it right – when the show leans into what makes a star and what breaks a star – it is emotive and emotional theatrical dynamite. Frustratingly, there are too many scenes that lean into rubbernecker voyeurism of inevitable tragedy that run and re-run the same destructive behaviour patterns: between Judy and her problematic, soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey Deans (Jacob Dudman, trapped in a thankless, underwritten role); between Judy and her piano accompanist and gay everyman Anthony (Adam Filipe, determinedly bringing some heart to a part that’s more conduit than character); between Judy and the hotel manager of The Ritz, and so on, while offering no fresh insight or narrative progression.

What will force audiences to put these script failings aside is the transformative casting of Jinkx Monsoon as Garland. There is an aphorism that it takes a star to play a star. Well, we can add, it takes a beloved, charismatic LGBTQ icon to play a beloved, charismatic LGBTQ icon. Her Judy walks such a tightrope: she has been wounded across decades and yet she survives; she has been manipulated her entire life but you see how manipulative she can be; yearning for normality but cannot let go of diva antics that have become her survival instincts. Monsoon invests all of these push-pull impulses with a mercurial thrill and a jeopardy that mesmerises.

What Jinkx Monsoon does so brilliantly is to offer a totemic storm between talent and torment. Her Ritz suite seems smaller. Her line microphone wire is wrapping around her. Her world is closing in around her and she is nearing the end of her rainbow. But Monsoon’s triumph is to frame Garland as both talented and tormented, without giving into the script’s gravitational pull towards merely tragic. You can feel her performer’s instinct and nuance fighting for every bit of agency for the star she is playing. She elevates the script in ways that are bewitching. Her unpredictability, her physicality, her humour – truly there is not a smart, comedic beat missed – all recall the minutiae of Garland. As the posters proclaim, Jinkx Monsoon is Judy Garland. And there will be moments watching this show, where you will forget that it’s one you are watching and not the other.

Ultimately, the legend of and the love for Judy Garland came from her songs. If Monsoon’s acting performance is one that plays around with the legendary singer’s volatile extremes, then her vocal performance as Judy is what makes End of the Rainbow unmissable. Monsoon doesn’t impersonate Garland: she inhabits her.

Monsoon is a gifted singer in her own right, but where it becomes uncanny is Jinkx’s vocal replication of Judy’s vibrato. The wild oscillation between two points, that mirrored the legendary singer’s emotional swings, encapsulates every joy and heartbreak you’ve ever known. Judy’s ability to convey to any audience every raw scrap of feeling is matched here by Monsoon’s mesmerising performance.

End of the Rainbow offers several musical coup-de-theatres that simply take your breath away. In the first act, there is a lightning transition between Judy rehearsing at the piano in her hotel room and a mid-song switch to the actual nightclub performance, which will give you goosebumps as it erupts into action. In the second act, Jinkx leaves the stage and sings in the audience, toying with the adoring crowd, roaming up and down the aisle of Soho Theatre Walthamstow, immediately transporting proceedings to 1968 Talk of the Town. On a good night. You get a rush of what it would have been like to have been in the presence of greatness. At the end, when Jinkx delivers Judy’s heart-wrenching signature song, it is every bit the gut punch now as it would have been then.

Plaudits must go to Jasmine Swan, whose dazzling array of exquisite costumes completes the illusion.

While it is easy to quibble about Quilter’s script, what is indisputable is that it offers Monsoon the perfect vehicle to display considerable acting chops as well as her vocal acumen. This is what you come for. There might not be a pot of gold at The End of The Rainbow, but there is a performance that will linger long in the memory. Put simply: as Judy Garland, Jinkx Monsoon brings the magic.