THE Lady Boys Of Bangkok were back in York on Tuesday for another round of diamante dresses, bright colours and bawdy humour, this time with their brand new show, Red Hot Kisses, in their Barbican debut.

The opening number kicked things off with outlandish costumes and slick choreography, before the show moved into a heady mixture of solo acts and comedic skits, with highlights including, in no particular order, a tribute to the late Amy Winehouse, a montage of iconic movie songs, a hilarious bait-and-switch lap dance for one lucky audience member, and an extremely one-sided boxing match between a lady boy and a dwarf that I will not be forgetting any time soon.

The second half was similarly varied, featuring a couple of completely clean, but implicitly filthy, country songs, a very tongue-in-cheek rendition of Aqua’s Barbie Girl, a farcically derailed opera performance and Village People’s YMCA, all before finishing on a lively medley of Robbie Williams hits and a final performance of the Weather Girls’ It’s Raining Men.

The real comedy, however, came not from the performances but rather the Lady Boys’ willingness to come down from the stage and get involved with the crowd. often with cringingly funny results. There’s an old joke about never sitting in the front row, but here, no-one was beyond their reach, as I discovered despite sitting in row eight!

Energetic, exotic, eclectic and completely unpredictable, the Lady Boys of Bangkok are a great night out for anyone willing to risk losing little dignity for the sake of a good laugh.