There is something so impressive about making a room laugh this hard while telling them all about your existential crisis. Drag queen Ginger Johnson manages it with filthy jokes, an imaginary horse, and a fairly questionable approach to spiritual healing. I went to Show Pony at Soho Theatre expecting a fun evening and was far from disappointed! We laughed so much, and somewhere between the supermarket indignities and the psychedelic nonsense, I even found myself getting a little moved.
For anyone who only knows Ginger from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK or Celebrity MasterChef (both of which she won), this is a lovely opportunity to spend some proper time in her company. Admittedly, ‘lovely’ might sound a bit genteel for an evening involving recreational drugs and toad licking, but there’s a warmth to Ginger that makes even the filthiest detours feel welcoming. She gets us on side easily, poking fun at her television credentials before explaining how winning a cooking competition has complicated the business of buying a hangover breakfast.
The first stretch is mostly stand-up and storytelling, with Ginger reflecting on getting older, keeping up with younger people, and the particular insult of a supermarket employee deciding you are old enough to buy alcohol without even seeing your face. Her outrage at the self-checkout is hilarious. It’s a small, everyday humiliation, inflated to exactly the ridiculous proportions it deserves.
She’s very good at taking something familiar and following it somewhere increasingly absurd. TikTok becomes a window into loneliness, changing fashions turn into a nightmare, and the search for a little inner peace leads to some very dodgy spiritual advice.
Eventually, we meet the titular show pony. An imaginary childhood companion, he represents an innocence and freedom that adult Ginger is struggling to reconnect with. It’s a wonderfully silly way into something quite tender and personal: that feeling of having lost touch with the person you were before life became so full of responsibilities, disappointments, and people moving to Margate.
That search takes us through stories of gong baths and a dishy ‘chakrapractor’, with Ginger cheerfully dismantling the wellness industry while remaining very open to the possibility that an attractive man might have the answers. There’s plenty of ridiculous storytelling here, but the desire underneath it makes sense. She wants to feel better. She wants a bit of the magic back.
Original songs punctuate the talking, giving that increasingly strange journey room to expand. They belong to the story, carrying its silliness into musical form and, later, allowing more vulnerable feelings to emerge. A song about spiritual realignment can be packed with innuendo; another can leave you thinking about loneliness, identity, and the effort involved in putting on a smile.
Ginger opens up about her family. She talks about finding a new connection with her parents through cooking during her Masterchef involvement, and about her father becoming seriously ill. The jokes are still there, sometimes even darker because of the subject matter, but you can hear how much this matters to her. Those shifts were what really got me – one minute we were laughing our arses off, the next, we were listening intently.
Ginger gives those feelings space without losing the mischievous personality that makes the evening such fun. By the end, I was thinking about how easily the business of ‘adulting’ can get in the way of being true to yourself.
Show Pony is filthy, funny, and touching. I came away full of endorphins from all the laughter, feeling lucky to have spent the evening with Ginger, and hoping she keeps a hold on that pony.
Show Pony plays at Soho Theatre until 7 November 2026.
Book your tickets at sohotheatre.com.
The UK tour continues until 26 February 2027.
Find full tour dates and booking links at gingerjohnson.co.uk.
Words by Nick Barr
Production photography by Harry Elletson
Featured photography by Eivind Hansen
