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…!
Gender isn’t a exactly new
frontier for queer people, it’s always been a frontier. The law that got to be
too damn much at Stonewall – as we should know by now but as Laverne reminds us – was that all patrons must wear three items of clothing ‘appropriate to their
gender’ otherwise the police would crack skulls.
Gender and its multiple expressions
are deep in the heart of queer history and art. It wasn’t long ago that homosexuality
/ drag / transgenderism were talked about as a continuum of expression. You encounter
it in contemporary accounts of the Stonewall era, right up to Paris is Burning. The scare queens, butches
and femme queens of yesteryear might not necessarily connote cis or trans precisely the way we think of those terms today. Our connections to one another as
queer people of all genders are deep and abiding and vital.
Timely as ever, this year’s
Queer
Contact Festival puts together a broad and exciting programme where gender
is frequently at the artistic frontier. Transparenthas
been one of the most radically queer mainstream shows ever created, winning
dozens of awards as it interrogates ideas about sexuality, history and identity.
It’s something of a coup that one of the writers and series advisors, Our Lady J, is appearing at
Queer Contact 2016. Her original musical show ‘For
the Love of Gospel’ will help demonstrate why she has worked with everyone from Sia to Debbie Harry, via Antony Hegarty, Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper and Scissor Sisters.
Next, from high-femme to bold
and butch, Eilidh Macaskill’s ‘STUD’
puts a queer woman’s perspective on the traditional gender binary as she performs
a series of hyper-masculine tropes, exercising her ‘penis envy’ with full
comedy intact.
For a more local
perspective on the performance of gender, Jez Dolan and Chris Hoyle’s ‘Life’s A Drag’
is the beginning of a year-long project that celebrates Manchester’s drag culture
and its deep roots with performance, oral history and maybe even some
participation, so get your foundation right.
If the Pet Shop Boys are ‘The Smiths you can dance to’, Erasure
are the Pet Shop Boys you can really camp it up to. Singer Andy Bell’s Contact show
will take him on a somewhat different route as he explores the vexed polysexual
character of ‘Saint
Torsten’ through a song-cycle written especially for him and lately performed
at Edinburgh Fringe. It’s a chance to see and hear a legendary gay pop voice as
never before.
Another Queer Contact highlight
is the return of Debs Gatenby, star of the much-loved Hi,
Anxiety, whose new solo show looks at those journeys, inside and out,
in search of ‘A
Place Called Happiness’.
A dose of raw comedy can
be had in the Comedy Playground
where seven stand-ups battle it out for your love and lolz, including Bethany
Black of Cucumber/Banana fame, Suzi
Ruffell from telly and a familiar flamboyant host...
As for me, I’ll be
throwing a Queer Contact launch party in the shape of A Queer Revue! at Band
on the Wall, featuring international and local trans, gay, lesbian and queer
talent, including contemporary dance, singing drag queens, Kate Bush and Bowie
tributes, poetry, pop videos, comedy and a big old party afterwards.
As for the rest of the
programme, you can tuck into the full
listings here, or use my handy taster guide below…!
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.
