Review: Don’t Tell Mama ★★★★★
The brand new LGBTQ weekender brings sparkly queer joy to Butlin’s Bognor in January, banishing the Winter blues.
Deep in the mid-Winter gloom, we packed up our most colourful and sparkly outfits and headed to the inaugural Don’t Tell Mama, the queer festival held at Butlin’s in Bognor. Loading the car with frankly too many sequinned jackets is a familiar ritual at this time of year, as we’re veterans of The Mighty Hoopla’s annual shindig, which was held at the south coast resort before switching locations and date to Malta in September. On the face of it, the new Bognor bill was slightly less packed than the Hoopla event. So, would Don’t Tell Mama offer the same burst queer joy in January? We are happy (and hungover) to report that this yearly antidote to the post-festive season blues is in safe hands.
The event is one of Butlin’s Big Weekenders, during which you can enjoy the resort facilities on offer as well as the festival entertainment, in a canny marketing move to create excitement at those times of the year when the seaside is more a setting for a bleak existential crisis than building sandcastles. And it does wonders for the local wildlife, keeping the seagulls supplied with dropped chips. Don’t Tell Mama is organised by Brighton’s Twelve A Studios, with producer David Hill taking to the stage to thank everyone involved, saying that the festival has been two years in the making. From the start, we can tell that it’s been created with care.
The Friday night party kicks off with a performance by Irish drag vocal powerhouse Polly Glamorous (not to be confused with dance party Polyglamorous, who bring their dynamic queer collective to Saturday night). A feel-good set by Abba Gold follows, with many of the crowd suitably glammed up. Across the weekend, there are a couple more tribute acts: the Dolly Parton Experience is a polished production with plenty of tales from Dolly’s life, as well as the songs. We end up at the front for Donna Marie as Lady Gaga, accompanied by two outstanding dancers. She ends her set with sparklers emanating from her boobs, recalling Johnny Woo’s lighting of a firework from a certain orifice at Hoopla, a few Januarys’ back. Continuity indeed.
Apart from enjoying upbeat performances by the likes of Vengaboys, The Wanted 2.0, Louise, and East 17, our personal faves of the events on offer tended to be hosted affairs that showed off many acts at once, a notable example being the talented performers of Chocolate Box. Another highlight was The Dragathon, hosted by Brighton’s friendly neighbourhood drag lesbian Billie Gold. Star turns included Kara van Park performing some fantastic show tunes befitting her other career as a star in musicals such as Les Miserables, Lovinia Belle delivering a powerhouse rendition of Nessun Dorma, and Drag With No Name bringing the house down her song using card props that pokes gentle fun at the LGBTQ+ alphabet soup, with a message of love and unity at the end that gets a standing ovation.
Away from the stages, a particular highlight is the pool parties, where DJs play while you bob about calmly on inflatable flamingos or hurtle down the flumes. Back at the hotel, our room overlooked the sea and had ample space for the ridiculous amounts of outfits we brought with us. The various on-site restaurants offer a good range of options, but as with any booze fuelled getaway, you will risk overdosing on pizza and return home craving vegetables. Staying on site means you can chill in between activities, but we really didn’t have much time to laze around.
There are a couple of teething problems with the programming: the large Centre Stage space fizzled out a bit after East 17 on the Sunday night, making us miss Hoopla’s massive End of the World parties. We ended up at the Reds venue, which has more of a subterranean club feel that keeps the party alive even when it empties out, but the bar there shut early, which also gave the impression of an event winding down, rather than a finale. A hook is needed to fill the largest venue space for a united club-style send-off and finish the weekend on a high. But these problems are to be expected for the first run of an event on this scale, so we’re still giving Don’t Tell Mama top marks.
There’s something that feels unique about this resort being taken over by the LGBTQ+ community, with freedom of expression across a weekend and a whole host of activities, rather than just at a day festival or evening event. At the Eurovision party on Saturday, Nikki French says that she has to keep changing the songs in her Eurovision medley according to geopolitics. She prefaces Love Shine a Light by Katrina and the Waves by saying how important that message is in an increasingly precarious world. Many of the other acts repeated this sentiment.
Don’t Tell Mama is indeed a safe space, and we’re very glad to hear it wasn’t a one off. We’ve already booked for next year, and most of the people we spoke to while there planned to do the same. Let’s make it a success, so do tell everyone, yes, including yer mum!
Don’t Tell Mama LGBTQ weekender will be back at Butlin’s Bognor from 29 January-1 February 2027, with prices starting at £114 per person. Find out more here.
Lucy is a scriptwriter and producer in theatre and film – find out more about her work here – and a researcher who enjoys getting out from behind the desk to find new things to do and sometimes review.
