With Chanel O’Connor’s departure and her farewell message wiped from the mirror, it’s time for a new week and a fresh, exciting challenge. Seven queens remain, and what’s to come is without a doubt one of my favourite episodes of recent seasons.
Ru arrives and dives straight into introducing the maxi-challenge: we’re taking a trip back in time to when music charts were a part of everyone’s childhood. It’s Top of the Pops—or, in this case, Pop of the Tops. This week, the queens are to portray musical icons in this season’s Rusical. As last week’s double challenge winners, La Voix and Kyran Thrax get to assign the roles.
The dividing of the roles runs smoothly, with only one showdown between Charra Tea and Actavia for the role of Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls. Although they both try, neither fully embody her, but the role goes to Actavia.
Rehearsals allow the queens to familiarise themselves with choreography and, more importantly, embody the character. Lill instantly does a fabulous job as the host, Cilla Black, and although she struggles with the choreography, she does get in her head about not being able to pick up like everyone else. When Pop of the Tops airs, it’s easily the strongest Rusical we’ve seen in many seasons. Each queen smashed their role, making it easy to identify who they were performing as. Rileasa surprised with her gorgeous rendition as Adele; her silky voice shone as she eased into a charming cockney narration. But honestly, everyone did such a good job that everyone deserved to place high and move on to the next episode, no problem.
The runway is a fantastic idea: A night of thousand Princess Diana’s! So many recognisable looks are brought to life, but for me, La Voix wowed as she thought outside the box by recreating the Log flume mum Diana—the famous shot of her at Alton Towers enjoying a family day with her sons. La Voix fully commits to her character as she arrives on the main stage greeted by a huge bucket of water being splashed in her face. Iconic.
As mentioned earlier, this season is so hard to judge, and Ru agrees, as she tells the girls that this is the one of the most charming casts they have ever had. Which sadly makes it that much harder to judge. Not to sound presumptuous, but it always feels like Ru enjoys judging the U.K. franchise; she enjoys the ridiculous camp, the fun, and the madness. Seeing her enthusiasm and being so vocal with her own opinions makes watching the show enjoyable to watch.
The winner of this week is La Voix, another badge added to the collection. Third week in a row and well deserved indeed.
Another heart-wrenching bottom two, which, lets face it, will be a recurring theme as we reach the finale. Lill and Actavia land in this week’s lip sync, and the song this week is an absolute UK party classic for any school disco, birthday, or wedding—The Rocky Horror Lets Do the Time Warp. In a tight battle, Lill emerges victorious and will be staying another week. Unfortunately, we must say goodbye to our wonderful Welsh dragon, Actavia. It’s the final six and tighter than ever; what did you think of this week’s episode?
