By Robert Nesti

When Jinkx Monsoon’s hilarious Judy Garland impression was first seen on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season 7’s edition of The Snatch Game, a meme was born. Dressed in a red gown and a signature Judy wig, she cracked jokes about serving Liza Minnelli pork chop sandwiches, broke into song mid-answer, and made RuPaul nearly double over in laughter. But it was more than just drag impersonation: Monsoon embodied Garland’s sharp wit and vulnerability with uncanny verisimilitude, so much so that fans were counting down the days when Monsoon would be playing Garland in a stage show.

That was in 2022. It has taken four years for Jinkx to return to Judy. In the meanwhile, Jinkx won Season 7 All Stars, making her the only contestant to win two seasons of Drag Race. In 2023, she made her Broadway debut as Mother Morton in Chicago, appeared on the British series Dr. Who, starred as Audrey in a hit off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors, then returned to Broadway in 2025 as Ruth in a reimagined Pirates of Penzance, entitled Pirates! The Penzance Musical. After that closed, she did two sold-out stints as Mary Todd Lincoln in Cole Escola’s runaway hit Oh, Mary!  This Spring she is London with her biggest challenge to date: playing Garland in Peter Quilter’s End of the Rainbow at the Soho Theatre Walthamstow through June 21, 2026.

This is the first London revival of Quilter’s play, which came to the West End in 2010 and Broadway in 2012 starring Tracie Bennett as Garland. The play was critically acclaimed and Bennett received an Olivier Award nomination (London) and a Tony Award nomination (Broadway). The play is set in the winter of 1968, just months before Garland’s death the following June. She has arrived in London — broke, erratic and chemically-dependent — to appear at the Talk of the Town nightclub, where, despite her current state, she shines in the spotlight. Quilters shows Garland as difficult, funny and heartbreaking. She is joined by two men: Mickey Deans, her ambitious fiance more interested in Judy Garland Inc. than the woman herself; and Anthony, a devoted queer fan whom she both loves and exploits. It is a role that requires more than singing “Over the Rainbow” with halting vibrato; it requires exacting, demanding acting. Bennett pulled it off, as did Renée Zellweger in the 2019 film adaptation (Judy) that won her an Academy Award.

For the role, Jinkx looked inward and saw the parallels between her life and Garland’s. She grew up in Portland with a mother who struggled with alcohol addiction, often finding herself in the role of caretaker for her younger siblings — a childhood that mirrors, in oblique and painful ways, the dynamics this play explores between Judy and the men who both depended on and destroyed her. “I just feel like, in very obtuse ways, we’ve lived parallel lives,” Jinkx has said. “But I have gotten to this really good place in my life that some people who struggle with addiction don’t make it to.” Jinkx has been sober from alcohol for around seven years, having quit after a near-miss in the UK when she was blackout drunk and nearly hit by a car. Preparing for the role, she said, helped her better understand her own mother. “Generational trauma is something I’ve had to learn a lot about for my own well-being. Unpacking that for myself, I’m able to help my mother, and find forgiveness for her.” When Jinkx says, simply, “It makes sense for me to play Judy Garland. It just does. Ask anybody” — you believe her completely.

The production not only marks Jinkx’s West End debut, but also that of London’s newest and most stylish performing venues. Soho Theatre Walthamstow opened in May 2025 after a £30 million restoration of the former Granada Cinema, a Grade II*-listed Art Deco landmark on Hoe Street in East London that had sat dark since 2003. The theater is actually some nine miles and a 20-minute tube ride from Central London.

The building — considered one of the finest surviving examples of Spanish-Arabic architecture in the country — was painstakingly returned to its 1930s grandeur by Waltham Forest Council in partnership with Soho Theatre, and the result is a 960-seat auditorium of genuine magnificence: sweeping curves, restored plasterwork, four bars including the Ziggurat and the Circle, a restaurant, and studio spaces that make the whole complex feel like a cultural destination rather than merely a venue. London Mayor Sadiq Khan called it a building “breathed back to life.” It is the kind of space that makes a show feel like an occasion before the curtain rises.

The new production of End of the Rainbow is directed by Rupert Hands, an associate of Jamie Lloyd on Sunset Boulevard and Evita. It features Jinkx Monsoon (Judy Garland), Jacob Dudman (Mickey), Adam Filipe (Anthony).

Here are quotes from the London reviews:

Here are a sample of the reviews:

Flicker Magazine   ★★★★★

Alarm-inducing precision — something close to the real thing

“What Jinkx Monsoon does here I find genuinely difficult to write about cleanly. The voice is extraordinary, the physical work total, the comic timing exact. None of that is the surprising part. The surprising part is the concert sequences, when Judy begins to lose the thread mid-performance, missing a cue, staring at the microphone cord as though she cannot account for it. You stop watching a performer demonstrate collapse. You start feeling something closer to alarm. The room went very still. I was not prepared for that. At the end she sings Over the Rainbow in a gown, and red petals fall from above, and she reaches up with both hands to catch one. After two and a half hours of a woman unable to hold onto anything, it is almost unbearable.”

Time Out London   ★★★★★

Incandescent — another star rises

“Interestingly, given Monsoon has a trail of Broadway credits to her name, this has not gone into the West End but a Zone 3 playhouse, Soho Theatre Walthamstow. And it’s the first show since the theatre opened last year to fully utilise and make sense of the vast space. A grand piano is the centrepiece of Swan’s set, and both it and Judy appear to float like heavenly apparitions on the white, cloudlike steps that surround them. If its ending is a tad mawkish, it offers a moment of sombre reflection many will appreciate for what is, in its last breaths, a sorry story. This is not the Judy of A Star is Born, it’s the Judy of a star in decline. But in Jinkx Monsoon, another star rises.”

Time Out London   ★★★★★

Incandescent — another star rises

“Interestingly, given Monsoon has a trail of Broadway credits to her name, this has not gone into the West End but a Zone 3 playhouse, Soho Theatre Walthamstow. And it’s the first show since the theatre opened last year to fully utilise and make sense of the vast space. A grand piano is the centrepiece of Swan’s set, and both it and Judy appear to float like heavenly apparitions on the white, cloudlike steps that surround them. If its ending is a tad mawkish, it offers a moment of sombre reflection many will appreciate for what is, in its last breaths, a sorry story. This is not the Judy of A Star is Born, it’s the Judy of a star in decline. But in Jinkx Monsoon, another star rises.”

Theatre & Tonic   ★★★★★

Exquisitely detailed — the physical work total

“Monsoon’s portrayal of Judy is exquisitely detailed. Most of the time she speaks slowly and softly, but the moment Judy becomes emotional, words pour out of her in frantic torrents, as though her nerves are perpetually stretched to breaking point. The way she walks and places her hands on her hips is very distinctive, and I found myself noticing her habitual gestures of touching her cheek, adjusting her earrings, and anxiously fiddling with her fingers. Monsoon captures Judy’s passion, childish impulsiveness, theatricality, vulnerability, and deeply ingrained self-destructive tendencies all at once. She radiates enormous charm while simultaneously inspiring frustration and heartbreak. When Judy becomes too disoriented by drugs to remember which song she is meant to sing, her eyes lose focus, her thoughts fracture, and even the microphone cord seems to confuse her. I found myself genuinely worried for her, terrified she might collapse onstage at any moment.”

Everything Theatre   ★★★★★

An excellent production made exceptional

“End of the Rainbow is an excellent production made exceptional by the talent of Jinkx Monsoon. She utterly owns the part, drawing on dire personal experience and stretching her skills to create a thing of hope that ultimately celebrates the enormous positivity Judy left in the world.”

A Young(ish) Perspective   ★★★★★

A genuine moment in entertainment history

“End of the Rainbow is a masterclass in theatrical energy, beautifully balancing the ebbs and flows of comedy and gripping drama. Packed with sensational vocals, top-tier acting, and a palpable heartbeat, the evening feels less like a standard night at the theatre and more like a genuine moment in entertainment history.”

London Theatre   ★★★★☆

Chilling relevance — a powerful voice lives on

“On press night, it felt as though our very engaged audience could have been whooping and hollering for Jinkx, Judy, or Jinkx as Judy, as the line between actor and subject becomes blurred in Rupert Hands’s absorbing production. One scene tumbles into the next as the setting drifts between her suite at The Ritz, the nightclub, and BBC studios, replicating her fugue state. This portrait of an icon undone by fame and the selfish motivations of those around her has chilling relevance for women who are let down by the entertainment business today. There is little salve at the play’s end, as the loyal Anthony narrates the events of Judy’s tragic final days. Yet, when Monsoon returns to the stage one last time to sing the title number, dressed in one of Swan’s resplendent gowns, it is a reminder that her powerful voice lives on.”

The Stage   ★★★★☆

Monsoon triumphs in an uneven production

“Jinkx Monsoon triumphs as Judy Garland in an uneven production.”

The Guardian   ★★★☆☆

Tremendous casting; grindingly repetitive hotel scenes

“It’s tremendous casting which also honours Garland’s status as a queer icon, which is underlined in the script by Anthony’s earnest appreciation and Mickey’s homophobic contempt. Though Filipe is touching, both of the characters remain too functional, teeing up her anecdotes, and the hotel scenes grow grindingly repetitive and exasperating, although that’s the authentic terrain of addiction.”

WhatsOnStage   ★★★☆☆

Accomplished impersonation; the musical numbers are where she truly impresses

“The legions of Jinkx Monsoon fans will be living their best lives at this glossy revival of Peter Quilter’s overwrought but undeniably compulsive Judy Garland play. Jinkx as Judy gets to sing her heart out — her approximation of the famous quavery voice fretted with steel verges on the uncanny at times — reflect, flirt, rage, emote… and fall flat on her sequinned behind while under the influence of alcohol and drugs. It’s an epic role, and La Monsoon tackles it head-on. Her energy, commitment, and skills as a comic and mimic are tremendous, but ultimately this feels more like a highly accomplished impersonation than a fully rounded characterisation. She’s magnetic but seldom approaches the manic euphoria or the volcanic depths found in Tracie Bennett’s legendary Olivier-nominated performance in the original West End and Broadway version.”

Broadway World   ★★★☆☆

A misfire — comedy overwhelms the tragedy

“Fresh from an overseas stint in Oh, Mary!, she seems stuck in a different project. Where her co-stars Jacob Dudman and Adam Filipe deliver reflective and sombre portrayals, she is firmly set on parody. Though her farcical characterisation is endlessly amusing and her sharp wit shines with Quilter’s one-liners, there’s a jarring dissonance between her style and the content. Both men are met with Monsoon’s firecracker temperament, which is nestled between caricature and panto darling. She might be hilariously overdramatic and OTT, but there’s a shocking superficiality to her. Quilter’s writing doesn’t do much to avoid this: it’s unrefined, brash, and loud, opting to represent addiction as a bratty attitude. In the same way that Garland was chewed up and spat back out by Hollywood, it’s a shame that the profundity of the story is swallowed whole by its accidental comedy.”

Mickey Jo Theatre