Queer Contact… the story so far!

It’s been a rollercoaster of variety already: funny, serious, questioning, confrontational… Here’s what I’ve got up to at this year’s Queer Contact so far.

Life’s A Drag is a piece by artist Jez Dolan looking at Manchester’s drag history, and present day, and these live performances represent the first fruits of an ongoing project. Written with playwright Chris Hoyle, Life’s a Drag is a meta-comedy where we see two drag queens preparing backstage for a show. While they bitch, kvetch, laugh and take us on a journey back in time via the make-up box, they teach one another about the relevance of their own particular school of drag and gayness, from Polari to RuPaul. We encounter legends and legendary nights out, from Foo Foo Lamaar to the Hulme drag ball, and it’s all done with such a light touch that it feels like a genuine eavesdrop, even as they kick down the fourth wall with heels. There’s a superbly moving moment with a pair of earrings that crystallises what the piece is about for me, plus an astonishingly good musical medley at the end, sung across the decades, but no spoilers as to the songs…

FAdoubleGOT and The Daily Grind worked well on the same bill. The former is Jamal Gerald’s very personal story, encompassing bullying, education, a second-generation immigrant experience, youth, sexuality and life in a Northern town. Using monologue, symbolism, music and pop culture, it’s performed with a charming combination of earnestness and sass that perhaps even its very young creator isn’t fully aware of. He’s also a terrific poet and his verse threads neatly through the piece as he goes. The Daily Grind is the work of a slightly older, very serious theatre maker, all about life on dating apps. Don’t be surprised if you feel vulnerable and discomfited as much as moved to laughter. The dissonance of the performance comes from its single performer and writer, Laurie Brown, flitting between friendly, camp, menacing and monstrous. For anyone in the know it mirrors convincingly the Jekyll and Hyde nature of online encounters. The last five minutes of the show were a borderline genius move.

A personal highlight so far has been Outspoken, the poetry and spoken word event. A real triumph of curating, the breadth of writing styles and extremely high standard of performance, not to mention the content which ran from surreal to sad to hilarious to too-damn-true, made for a really inspirational evening. Such a treat to see Jackie Kay perform, and a first real life encounter too with my online favourite, poet AJ McKenna. Also introduced me to astonishing work from Paula Varjack and Keith Jarrett too. Seek them out.

Another personal favourite was STUD, a bizarre and hilarious journey through masculinity and the world of horses (yes, horses). Created and performed by a truly confident and accomplished performer, like no other show on the bill the audience were in this performer’s hands from the opening seconds. It’s hard to even describe the show or why it works so well, suffice to say after twenty minutes you stop even noticing the glorious pubic bush that’s constantly on show. It’s a piece that gently terrorises gender, with a handsaw, a raw carrot, whatever comes to hand or hoof. Eilidh McAskill, I salute you.

Still to come for me: Our Lady J, which will be a Valentine musical weekend sensation, and a religious experience in the shape of Jesus Queen of Heaven, on a Sunday of course… Full line up is here, and check out the pics from my own Queer Contact event right here. See you soon…!

Le Gateau Chocolat at Contact

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.

A Queer Revue!

Here's a cool press release about my new night happening this Friday...



The demolition of Legends is still mourned by Manchester’s LGBT community, the closing of Essential marked the last gay superclub in the city, and Kraak, home to a host of LGBT nights, has shut up shop. But sometimes in Manchester the answer as to where to put on a party can be right under your nose.

A Queer Revue! is an experimental venture mixing club DJs with a range of cabaret style performances that will take place on October 2nd at Band On The Wall. Over two centuries old, Band On The Wall began life as The George & Dragon Pub before becoming a renowned music venue in the 1930s and undergoing the change that made its Mancunian nickname official.

A Queer Revue! is the newest night to make a home there, brainchild of DJ, promoter and creative, Greg Thorpe, co-founder of Drunk At Vogue (you may have seen them launch the last two Manchester International Festivals) and resident/promoter at Off The Hook (City Life’s ‘Best Gay Night’ 2013).

‘I’ve always admired how the Vauxhall Tavern in London is integral to the identity of Duckie. It’s possible this is the first official LGBT party at Band On The Wall, but drag acts like Diamond Lil and Neville St Claire were regular performers there in the late 1950s, and that history of showgirls and servicemen, all that rowdy entertainment fits so nicely into queer history. I like that it’s in the Northern Quarter, but also on the edge of the city – that’s a very queer thing too,’ says Greg.

‘Once you’ve played at the MIF Theatre you don’t want to go backwards and at Band On The Wall we won’t have to. We have a historic venue at our disposal that includes terrific light, stage and backstage facilities that will give performers chance to shine, plus the DJs will love the soundsystem.’

The first line-up for A Queer Revue! combines three of the city’s favourite LGBT parties from the Queer Alt Manchester collective:

Bollox has been on the scene for a decade, thriving on indomitable spirit, loyal punters and eclectic playlists, and they throw in dressing up boxes, fledgling drag queens, bring-and-buy sales and more into the mix. DJ Rod Connolly and Bollox drag hostess Lill will both perform at A Queer Revue!

Cha Cha Boudoir is home to drag queen collective, The Family Gorgeous. Once a month at the Boudoir, Cheddar Gorgeous, Anna Phylactic and their troupe of queens satirise and pay homage to popular culture with their radical drag competition. DJ Danny Olsson-Lane and artiste Anna Phylactic will represent Cha Cha at A Queer Revue! with thrilling dance support from Tom Kuzniar.

Off The Hook is the long-running queer party playing hip-hop and RnB to a loyal crowd. At A Queer Revue! Greg will take the decks, with specially-commissioned dances from gifted choreographer Joshua Hubbard and the amazing Yandass from FlexN, who recently took MIF by storm.

Plus, in the beautiful adjoining Picturehouse Bar, queer short films will play on the giant screen while writer Adam ‘Beyoncé’ Lowe will be on hand performing as ‘The Telephone Poet’. A Queer Revue! will be hosted by a different guest compere each time and for the first party that duty falls to Salford’s finest drag powerhouse, Joyce D’Vision.

Greg says, ‘I like to think about the word ’Queer’ in both its old and new meanings. I like the sense of oddity and intrigue it has, and of course it’s a way for people to identify themselves on the LGBT+ spectrum. It’s a versatile and passionate word, I want people to be less afraid of it. The word ‘revue’ opens the night to all kinds of performance. In future I’d like comedy to sit alongside pop, burlesque with hip-hop, I want to make ‘vaudeville disco’ a thing…’

A Queer Revue! at Band On The Wall

Friday 2^nd October, 10pm till 3am

Tickets £6: http://bandonthewall.org/events/4846/

25 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JZ, Tel: 0161 832 1111 www.bandonthewall.org

We love you Sandra Bernhard, go home!

She is tall, lean, tanned, with a deliciously drawling hick accent, dressed head to, er, hips in spangled shimmering silver with batwing tassels. No, it’s not Sandra Bernhard, it’s Tina C, glamorous redneck Country and Western heartbreaker. ‘Please forgive me’, she announces, glinting under the spotlight like so much bacofoil, ‘I didn’t bring any stage clothes with me. I’m here tonight as an ordinary person … and as a Presidential Candidate for the United States of America!’ (‘White Trash in the White House!’) Drag is so not over, it’s just doing political satire instead of cock jokes and Bassey covers. Tina C (real name Chris Green) is a class act all round, she sings, she politicises, she makes jokes about Primark (‘I held up a dishcloth that was apparently a piece of clothing and I said ‘Yes! I am gonna wear this for the people of Manchester!’) She does the finest cover of ‘Purple Rain’ ever and if you don’t think No Dick's As Hard As My Life is the funniest album title you’ve ever heard, you are dead inside.

The audience, despite dozens of empty seats, was hyped and ready for Sandra Bernhard’s much-vaunted return and to be fair it took a while for her to kill our enthusiasm, but kill it she eventually did. The act was pretty much split between gorgeous musical pieces and hilarious scripted fantasy scenarios (becoming Stevie Nicks’ best friend, the WASP childhood she never had) and meandering, whining, ad-libbed, uncomfortable, monotonous crowd-baiting. Miss Bernhard doesn’t like the time slot, Miss Bernhard doesn’t like the flight she was on, Miss Bernhard doesn’t like Queer Up North (‘Get over it!’), Miss Bernhard might not actually like England, Manchester, us, me! Miss Bernard certainly doesn’t like coming on after Miss Tina C. ‘Maybe if I put on a little dress and ooh! Is that what you want? I’m working my ass off up here. This is REAL!’ Ouch.

At one point she pulled out a faintly embarrassing gay disco anthem style tune from the archives. I have a feeling this was meant to save the show. When that failed to get us on our feet things got nasty and not a little desperate. When she began an unprompted tirade against the white middle-class heterosexual patriarchal powers that be (so seventies) and their damn institution of marriage and us poor homos it would just have taken too long for anyone to heckle ‘In actual fact we have a system of Civil Partnership which, though not a full social equivalent to marriage per se, nevertheless provides fundamentally equal status in most significant areas of social partnership.’ Who could be bothered?

When we realised the people going to the loo in droves weren’t coming back, we too called it a night (at that point she was walking around the stalls beating a druum and shrieking ‘Jesus walks!’). We met some friends and fellow escapees outside the theatre, headed to the Village to recoup and spent the rest of the blissfully warm night drinking cold lagers on the boat at Eden (from actual glasses, amen!) and laughing our asses off.

Sorry Miss Bernhard, you might think drag is dated but I aint gonna roll over and shit Mars Bars every time someone says ‘Disco!’ either. Maybe they did that twenty years ago, thankfully those days are over.

We love you Sandra, go home.