It’s been several years coming
but Manchester finally got a taste of Le Gateau Chocolat’s sweet sweet
award-winning talent at Contact last night. Forget lip-syncing for your life, the
big, bearded and beautiful Le Gateau
Chocolat is first and foremost a vocalist of genuine power, and while she
might like to cheekily introduce herself as a ‘complete asshole’, her stage
persona is life-giving and full of heart – but let’s talk about that voice… Baritone,
velvet, dextrous, LOUD – you have never heard the Great American Songbook
performed like this. Breakneck trips through the best of the musicals are
punctuated with heart-breaking interludes where wigs and music are stripped
back for moments of real tenderness. At one point a delicate ‘Hoppipolla’-style
piano scale underpins the most touching Whitney Houston interpretation you
might ever hear.
The best drag performers have
comedy and tragedy at the tips of their gloves, and the music of Ms Chocolat
moves deftly between the two. The potted version of Les Miserables will make you want to fast forward through every
musical film ever with Gateau on the couch bedside you – hilarious. It’s offset
emotionally with moments such as an astonishing tribute to Paul Robeson, where
Gateau brings her basso profundo to the painful, beautiful, dignified slave narrative
of Robeson’s ‘Old Man River’. It’s a very moving and special moment to see a
large, powerful and adored black queer body and voice in all their power. Queer culture should always be about
celebrating that which the mainstream designates as ‘odd’ and ‘other’. Le Gateau
Chocolat celebrates herself, and the audience follows lovingly. ‘I have a law
degree you know,’ she says, as she switches from one dazzling lycra creation to
the next. Defying expectations is where great art begins, of course.
