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May 14, 2018May 14, 2018

BPREVIEW: Birmingham Pride @ 26/7.05.18

Words by Ed King

On Saturday 26^th and Sunday 27^th May, Birmingham Pride 2018 takes over the Gay Village in Birmingham City Centre – with the main festival taking place in venues and open spaces across Hurst Street, Kent Street and Lower Essex Street.

The ‘Be You’ Birmingham Pride 2018 Carnival Parade will be held on Saturday 26^th May, starting in Victoria Square and winding its way down to the festival site entrance at the Hippodrome end of Hurst Street – via New Street, Carrs Lane and Smallbrook Queensway. People can assemble in Victoria Square from 10:30am, with the Parade beginning at 12noon.

Participation in the ‘Be You’ Birmingham Pride 2018 Carnival Parade is free and open to all ages, with a variety of individual day and weekend tickets available for the main Birmingham Pride 2018 festival. For direct event information, including details on all the venues and acts taking part in Birmingham Pride 2018, click here or check out the online Pride Guide below.

Birmingham Pride, as we know it today, is celebrating 21 years on the city’s cultural calendar. The first Pride rally took place in Birmingham in 1972, a week after London hosted the inaugural event to mirror the North American based originals. But Birmingham Pride has moved from the more politically charged, and necessarily so, declaration of solidarity to a broadly inclusive event with both unity and entertainment at its heart.

Mercifully, the challenges faced by the LGBTQ community in the UK have arguably tempered and evolved since the institutionalised bigotry of yesteryear. Not to say there isn’t work still to be done, and attitudes yet to challenge and change, but the annual Birmingham Pride events feel much more like a citywide celebration than a daring public stance from a brave but maligned community. Plus, they’re just awesome fun. Tell me where else you’re going to see a rainbow display of Disney characters and Norse Gods drinking cider and dancing to Livin’ Joy? Tins Tins ‘aint open anymore, so…

And in keeping with inclusivity, this year theme for the Birmingham Pride events is ‘Be You’ – which is quite a clear and simple message. And knowing a few of the wonderfully warped minds that stalk our city I can’t wait to see the costumes for this one.

But what’s on stage? Too much to go through with a toothcomb, but the Main Stage Saturday acts include the all kinds of awesome Beth Ditto, our favourite footballer’s ex-wife Louise, followed by the Spotify smashing Kim Petras and Birmingham’s own Stefflon Don.

Sunday goes back to the glory days of 90’s House with Baby D, Kym Mazelle and Livin’ Joy, before pop stalwart Howard Jones and Scissor Sisters’ frontman Jake Shears close off the live sets. But never fear dear hearts, you’ve got DJ sets from Rudimental and Paul Morrell to round it all off. Can’t complain.

And if dance music is your thing then you’re in luck, with Birmingham Pride 2018 hosting its own Dance Arena featuring DJs and acts including Lisa Sharred, The Acid Experiment, Low Steppa, Tom Shorterz, Jamie Bull, Hooker Club, Gorgon City and DJ zine amongst others. Plus, there’s every venue on and within a stone’s throw of Hurst Street pitching in with pretty much something for everyone’s dancefloor.

Birmingham Pride 2018 also has its cabaret Marquee, hosting a catalogue of the fabulous, outrageous and fabulously outrageous from Saturday to Sunday. And whilst there are a few names we though might be on the bill that aren’t, especially against the burgeoning new backdrop of Birmingham’s drag and performance art community, there are enough familiar faces to ensure a riot in all the right places – including Ginny Lemon, Miss Penny, Tanya Hyde, Miss Thunderpussy, Amy La Queefa, Glitter Lips, Drag With No Name, Champagne Shirley, and, of course, Twiggy.

Loads more going on at Birmingham Pride 2018 than we have the time, space or typing speed to squeeze into this BPREVIEW – but sufficed to say there’s something for people of all ages, gender, musical tastes and hat size. But luckily, we don’t have to as the festival organisers have given us a handy online Pride Guide – see below.

From everyone at Birmingham Review, we wish you a safe and happy Birmingham Pride 2018.

Birmingham Pride 2018 – Pride Guide

Birmingham Pride 2018 takes over the Gay Village in Birmingham City Centre on Saturday 26^th and Sunday 27^th May, with the ‘Be You’ Birmingham Pride 2018 Carnival Parade taking place at 12noon on the Saturday.

For direct event information, including details on all the venues and acts taking part in Birmingham Pride 2018, visit www.birminghampride.com

April 19, 2018April 19, 2018

BREVIEW: Dragpunk Presents Candyland @ The Nightingale Club 06.04.18

Words & illustrations by Emily Doyle

On Friday 6^th April, queer art collective Dragpunk took over the middle floor of The Nightingale Club. This was the venue for their brand new performance night, Dragpunk Presents. For the uninitiated, we caught up with host Amber Cadaverous – who began by explaining the origins of the group’s name.

The ‘drag’ in Dragpunk recognises that, “drag artistry is the expressive and creative art for anyone regardless of their gender, sexual identity and orientation,” tells Cadaverous, “it knows no gender but subverts and mocks all gender and art norms.” The collective’s values of “expressive, individual freedom that is anti-establishment and anti-mainstream society,” are where the ‘punk’ comes in.

“Whether your interest is makeup, performance art, drag art, queer politics, or you’re simply in need of a safe space for fun, self-expression, and excitement, we want to provide this,” continues Cadaverous. “We plan and run all events as safe space for those across the LGBTQ+ community and allies. We only encourage fun and freedom – dress how you want and be who you want. We welcome all of those who just want to feel the love of a community.

Birmingham is our home, and Birmingham is brimming with art and creativity that needs an outlet and a voice.”

The theme for tonight is Candyland. Paul Aleksandr runs the door. Head to toe in neon pink, complete with bedazzled facial hair, he offers cakes and sweets to guests as they arrive. Hands are stamped and drinks are bought.

Around midnight, Cadaverous totters on stage. She wears platform heels, a paint splattered prom dress, and an enormous purple wig topped with an even bigger pink bow. Her face is painted with a Glasgow smile and heavily lined eyes, but her excitement about the evening shines through. She welcomes and introduces fellow Dragpunk, Lilith.

Lilith looks like she’s stepped straight out of your MySpace top friends from 2004. She’s dressing up a cinched and contoured club kid look with buckets of kimo-kawaii accessories. A dynamic routine to Blood on the Dance Floor’s ‘Candyland’ sets the tone (and the pace) for the night. Strobe lights illuminate her backcombed wig.

Eva Lution follows, serving a look described by Cadaverous as “glamour granny”. Her glamour is certainly timeless, as she performs the evening’s most articulate lip sync to ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’. Lution’s floor length gown ripples across the stage. It looks effortless, but the costume designer and fashion student later confirms that it was sewn by her own fair hands. When the music switches to Def Leppard, Lution shrugs the gown to the floor. She reveals fishnets and thigh high boots. This girl is no granny.

Ginny Lemon brings a change of pace to the stage next. Some may remember Lemon from an appearance on ITV’s X Factor in 2017, or perhaps from her regular turn as a host at The Village Inn on Hurst Street. Either way, her face is not one you’ll forget in a hurry. Looking like the bastard daughter of Marge Simpson and Velma from Scooby Doo, Lemon emerges from the DJ booth gesticulating along to Tori Amos’ ‘Sugar’ followed by ‘Candy Shop’ by Madonna. These go down like a delicious citrusy treat with the crowd, but her original composition (an a cappella ode to biscuits) is even better.

After a short interval, the room fills again for Mama Mamba. The 2017 winner of Church of Yshee has set the bar high. She perches on the side of the stage, legs bound into a mermaid tail. The room goes quiet. ‘Part of Your World’ from The Little Mermaid fades in.

Mamba flirts with the crowd, winking and pouting throughout the lipsync while she’s photographed. She checks her flawless makeup in a shell-shaped mirror and combs a fork through her turquoise hair. Slowly, she pulls herself up onto her fins and shimmies out of the tail, flaunting the best bum on Birmingham’s drag scene. Mamba struts across the stage in a iridescent miniskirt, and when the song reaches its falsetto climax she gleefully removes her seashell bra to reveal matching nipple tassels. It’s what Walt Disney would have wanted.

A new face on the local scene, Stormy Carl’s creator describes her as “a messy woman zoomed in on.” She wears a pink satin slip which clashes against her emerald curls. If you look down, pink stripy socks peep out the top of her platform sandals. Carl has taken the evening’s theme and run with it, crafting a playful mix for her routine that features Aqua, Austin Powers, and a smattering of Spongebob Squarepants dialogue.

She drizzles caramel over herself and throws her sticky dress to the ground, untangling it from her feet as the room takes in her pink paisley bikini. Her athletic, chaotic routine leaves the crowd wondering where she’s been hiding.

We caught up with Stormy Carl after the show for a few words. As one of Dragpunk’s female performers, she had a few words on the role of women within the scene:

“Drag at its core, to me anyways, is just about playing dress up,” explains Carl. “Historically it was a way to entertain and escape from society. You can be ANYONE in drag: yourself, an egg, a celebrity, or just whatever you perceive as beautiful. I like to take the idea of ‘woman’ that society has constructed and just times it by 100.”

Nora Virus opens the third and final set of the evening. A key player in Birmingham’s club kid community, Virus is a part of the Opulence collective and founder of another new drag event coming to Birmingham, Mother’s Meeting. Wearing a cropped, tie dye t-shirt and candy floss pink wig, she delights in completely desecrating ‘Pure Imagination’ from 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Beckoning fellow artist Liam Layland from the crowd, Virus invites him to reach inside the large, plush doughnut strapped around her waist and try his luck. What follows can’t be repeated here, but it ends with them skipping off stage together to the tune of ‘I’ve Got a Golden Ticket’.

Self-described ‘burlesquer and activist’, Petite, is a bundle of cardigan and big frothy petticoats. She dances to Jackie Wilson’s fitting ‘Reet Petite’, grinning at the crowd. This saccharine tone quickly dissolves when ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ starts playing for the second time this evening.

Petite takes this more literally than Eva Lution did and strips down to lingerie before liberally pouring a whole a bag of Tate & Lyle over her body. When the song’s over, the performers all scrabble to clear the floor of sugar, whipped cream, and cupcake crumbs in time for the final act.

The fourth and final member of the Dragpunk collective, Tacky Alex, is here to close the night. Joined on stage by Stormy Carl and Mama Mamba for a choreographed routine to Katy Perry’s ‘California Girls’, Alex begins pulling audience members up to join them. After the show, Amber Cadaverous picked this out as the highlight of her night.

“It felt so silly and fun but had a real community vibe and spirit; everyone was laughing and smiling. It just felt so right!“

It seems a fitting ending to a night celebrating the playful and inclusive nature of drag as an art form; everyone left feeling pleased to see the Dragpunk team pull it off.

”There is always something really magic about seeing all your plans come to life,” Cadaverous agrees. “Our ‘Presents’ night is going to be regular throughout the year, each time with a new theme and a production showcasing local and national UK drag of all genders, sexualities and abilities… expect us to release the next theme and line up shortly! As well as our performance night we also run a queer alternative party called I’m Not Okay and our next one of those will be at Birmingham Pride in Nightingales on the Future Stage.

We are also working on some events that will run during the day and outside of club spaces so our fans and friends under 18 will be able to enjoy queer performance art and community based events. Plans include film viewings, drag makeup workshops, drag queen life drawing, open mic performance segments and more!”

For more on the Dragpunk Collective, visit www.facebook.com/dragpunkcollective

For more from The Nightingale Club, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.nightingaleclub.co.uk

April 5, 2018April 4, 2018

BPREVIEW: Dragpunk Presents: Candyland @ The Nightingale Club 06.04.18

Words by Emily Doyle

Local queer collective, Dragpunk, are launching a brand new performance based night – Dragpunk Presents. The inaugural event is on Friday 6^thApril at The Nightingale Club, with tickets priced at £4 (adv) and £6 (otd).

For direct event information, including online ticket sales, click on the following links to visit the Eventbrite ticket website or the Dragpunk Presents: Candyland Facebook Event Page.

For Dragpunk Presents’ first show, the theme is Candyland: A Celebration of Drag – with the team behind it promising ‘a happy land of modern, diverse, inclusive and utterly creative drag and performance!’. Following on from the roaring success of Dragpunk Collective’s alt queer night, I’m Not Okay, this new event will be ‘showcasing local and national UK drag of all genders, sexualities and abilities that you’ll adore!’. Looks like it’s going to be a big one too.

Hosting Candyland is Amber Cadaverous, the DJ and performance artist known for her arresting and sometimes unsettling looks. When she’s not busy studying at Birmingham School of Art, Cadaverous is hard at work as one quarter of the Dragpunk Collective. Another bonafide drag punk, Paul Aleksandr will also be in attendance – fresh from a delightful turn at The Glee Club supporting BenDeLaCrème. Expect fishnets, body paint and butchered cuddly toys.

Also performing is Yshee Black, icon of the Birmingham scene and host of regular drag contest Church of Yshee at The Village Inn. If you were at the congregation last November you may recognise a few other faces at Candyland, including burlesque dancer Petite, club kid Nora Virus, and Church of Yshee winner Mama Mamba.

Tacky Alex will also be taking the stage at Candyland. Alex’s pastel perfect looks have been a hit at queer nights Glittershit and Second Self, with a chance to catch them at The Nightingale before she is back on stage supporting Trinity Taylor and Vander Von Odd in May.

Self-described ‘emo trash’, Lilith, will also be at Candyland – putting Siouxsie Sioux to shame with her eyes, alongside Glittershit regular, Pork Pie, who will be keeping it all a bit avant-garde.

You can also expect otherworldly looks from Stormy Carl, stunning costumery from Eva Lution, alternative glamour from Ginny Lemon, and something truly indescribable from Auntie Jamie…

Candyland: A Celebration of Drag comes to The Nightingale Club on Friday 6^th April, as presented by the Dragpunk Collective. For direct event information, including online ticket sales, click on the following links to visit the Eventbrite ticket website or the Dragpunk Presents: Candyland Facebook Event Page.

For more on the Dragpunk Collective, visit www.facebook.com/dragpunkcollective

For more from The Nightingale Club, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.nightingaleclub.co.uk

April 4, 2018

BREVIEW: The Twisted Circus @ O2 Academy 30.03.18

Words & illustrations by Emily Doyle

The O2 Academy stage is decked out like a big top in preparation for The Twisted Circus, as Klub Kids are bringing seven world class drag performers to Birmingham. The show is late to start due to traffic on the M5. The audience are eager but good natured, and happy to pose for the charismatic photographer perching on the crowd barrier.

A troupe of dancing clowns starts the proceedings, and the compere arrives. Andrew wears a tasseled ringmaster’s jacket. Our host makes no bones about the fact that the event is running late, ditching the banter and even the interval so that all the performances can run. His “the show must go on” attitude is admirable, and results in a fast paced evening. In a venue as large as the O2 Academy, an interval is no great use to the crowd anyway – a trip to the bar means losing your hard earned space near the front.

Farrah Moan is the first queen to perform. The twenty three year old starlet also got the memo about the circus theme, wearing a red basque complete with knee length tails. Her lip sync performance is sedate and elegant, though in a venue this size it feels a little low energy. She does cut a stunning figure on stage, though, and her fans seem delighted.

Putting in a performance that is most definitely big enough for the back row, is Milk. Fresh from appearing on the latest series of Ru Paul’s Drag Race All Stars, Milk performs a salacious lip sync to Barbara Streisand’s, ‘He Touched Me’.

Her second turn sees her nail a full routine to her own song, ‘Touch the Fashion, Change your Life’, complete with backing dancers and giant inflatable hands. Milk bounces around the stage in a frilly Bo Peep dress, and she is a joy to watch. In a line-up of queens who take their performances very seriously, Milk is a breath of fresh air.

South Korean/American drag queen, Kim Chi, gladly fulfills her billing as a ‘live action anime star’ with her otherworldly looks; her regal performance style and large flowy outfits command the stage. Her second lip sync sees her draped in black sequins with a large feathered headpiece. Statuesque, Kim Chi looks like a cross between Maleficent and the forest spirit from Princess Mononoke.

Central to the show is world-renowned Cher impersonator Chad Michaels, who performs a flawless lip sync to ‘Woman’s World’ and ‘Strong Enough’. Michaels wears a shocking blue peacock outfit and backs up her performance with live footage of Cher wearing the very same. Smart, as many of the audience members are too young to properly remember Cher. Celebrity impersonation feels a little dated among the more avant-garde performers on tonight’s bill, but Michaels carries it off with a smile and delights in judging an audience dance off.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated queens of the night is Violet Chachki. The Drag Race Season 7 winner waltzes on stage in a pink showgirl costume, complete with top hat, cane, and enormous skirts. She treats the audience to an enchanting lip sync to her new single, ‘A Lot More Me’. The burlesque striptease ends with Chachki posing in gold thigh high boots and a thong. She keeps the hat on.

Next from The Twisted Circus is Shea Couleé, showcasing the nights most impressive choreography with a routine to the new single, ‘Cocky’, from her Couleé-d EP. She struts across the stage in a retro-futuristic lime green catsuit and rectangular sunglasses. Her performance is pop star perfect. Over the electro beat, she spits such inspired lyrics as: “Ms. Couleé gon’ be a legend/but congrats ’cause all dogs go to heaven.” On the studio version of the track, fellow Chicago queen The Vixen has a verse. If this is the company she keeps, The Vixen is definitely one to watch on the new series of Drag Race.

Our host, Andrew, takes great pleasure in introducing The Twisted Circus’ next star on stage, “the most expensive body in the world, Amanda Lepore”. Lepore’s attitude is pure punk rock. She comes out to her own track, ‘Buckle Up’, which quickly morphs into a listless rendition of David Bowie’s ‘The Jean Genie’.

Lepore seems well-aware of her status as more of a living sculpture than a performer. She wastes no time in stripping down to pasties and holdups, and basks in the spotlight. Lepore is later joined on stage by Farrah Moan and Violet Chachki for an impromptu routine to ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’, where the three of them are luxuriated in rhinestones and furs.

When The Twisted Circus finally drops the curtain, just before curfew, it’s hard to believe it was all packed into ninety minutes. But despite the delays, all tonight’s performers and the team at Klub Kids pulled through and delivered a fabulous evening. One that neither motorway traffic nor the ever-present threat of more snow could stop Birmingham coming out to enjoy.

For more on Klub Kids, visit www.klubkids.co.uk

For more from O2 Academy Birmingham, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.academymusicgroup.com/o2academybirmingham

April 3, 2018April 3, 2018

BREVIEW: BenDeLaCrème @ The Glee Club (B’ham) 29.03.18

Words & illustrations by Emily Doyle

The Glee Club is dark and full when compère Alfie Ordinary appears on stage. Some might recognise his pageboy haircut and Twiggy-esque makeup from a certain car advert. He’s not here to sell you a reasonably priced three-door hatchback tonight; Ordinary is hosting the evening on behalf of Eat Sleep Drag Repeat, and doing so with bells on.

Styling himself as a ‘drag prince’, he skips across the stage welcoming the crowd. Clad in a bedazzled suit jacket and shorts, he seems to be wearing as much glitter as is physically possible as he welcomes the acts to the stage. That is until he returns after the interval – kicking off the second half of the show with a sing-a-long rendition of ‘Any Dream Will Do’, Ordinary is resplendent in his very own technicolour dreamcoat.

Birmingham drag performer Paul Aleksandr is there to represent the local scene. One quarter of our city’s Dragpunk Collective, Aleksandr describes himself as a clubkid and genderfucker with “a slight Slenderman vibe”. That vibe is clear from his performance tonight. Appearing on stage in one if his now trademark creations of body paint and butchered cuddly toys, Aleksandr performs a perfectly urgent lip sync to ‘I’m Late’ from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. The forlorn-looking stuffed rabbit on his headpiece flops its ears as he gesticulates.

Eva Serration was a late addition to the line-up tonight, travelling down from Manchester to join the ESDR party. Her drag takes pop culture and cinematic tropes and weaves them into political, avant-garde drag. She cuts Lady Gaga’s mariachi tinged protest song ‘Americano’ with soundbites from Donald Trump, and proceeds to demolish a makeshift wall with a golf club.

Throughout the night we see her best Miley Cyrus, complete with a wig reveal homage to Sasha Velours’ iconic ‘So Emotional’ performance, and a fond nod to Tarantino’s bloodthirsty schoolgirl Gogo Yubari. While Serration’s drag isn’t the most polished of the night, her performance is innovative – and who at a drag show is going to complain about a bit of Trump bashing?

Lydia L’Scabies proves “the bigger the hair, the better the queen” with her inspired routine to ‘Big Spender’. The University of Brighton Performance Art graduate (where did you think drag queens came from?) gives the best comedic turn of the night with her jarring performance. Don’t let anybody tell you that lip syncing Shirley Bassey can’t be original.

A heartfelt performance of ‘Jessie’s Song’ from Toy Story 2 while dressed as a “personal massager” makes up her second turn. L’Scabies execution is bold and theatrical, but the joke is arguably played out before the song is over.

Of course, the crowd is here to see BenDeLaCrème; following her controversial departure from Ru Paul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3, DeLa has been the subject of much discussion. Fellow competitors sarcastically dubbed the queen “BenDeLaChrist” after she ducked out of the competition early, keeping her ‘terminally delightful’ reputation intact and telling Ru Paul “I feel like a winner”. A group of fans online have taken her departure as a personal slight against them. BenDeLaCrème has something to say about this.

The opening bars of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ fill The Glee Club. In a pure white robe, DeLa makes her first appearance on stage. She takes the mic and launches into a smarting takedown of the viewer response to the series.

She performs an original song on the subject live – later revealing that she wrote it especially for this UK tour – as familiar voice samples from the TV show play throughout. DeLa produces a golden crown of thorns and shrugs off her robe to reveal a bodysuit sequined to represent the wounds of the crucifixion. She poses, and the track finishes. When the applause subsides, she wishes the crowd a happy Easter.

The rest of the show sees BenDeLaCrème charm the crowd with her trademark persona. She coaxes audience members through a lip sync and performs a fan favourite from the TV show, her burlesque comedy routine. For the unacquainted, this involves DeLa removing bra after bra, revealing increasingly ludicrous nipple tassles. It’s a crowdpleaser, although it doesn’t have the same impact as her original material.

The next day, I caught up with performer Paul Aleksandr to get his take on the evening:

“I really loved how full a show it was, and how it flowed so well – Birmingham hasn’t had that many shows like that before so it’s a wonderful new standard.

I love how self aware DeLa is. She talked about drag, the politics of it, her leaving (RuPaul Drag Race All Stars), with humour and a real knowledge of what fans think and do. She is there, like Sasha Velour is known for, with a message of inclusivity and diversity for LGBTQ people. And she came to The Nightingale After-Party, despite a busy schedule, and witnessed the best of Birmingham’s young and old queer folk on what was the club’s busiest night of the year.”

For more on BenDeLaCrème, visit www.bendelacreme.com

For more on Paul Aleksander, visit www.instagram.com/paul_aleksandr

For more on Alfie Ordinary, visit www.alfieordinary.com

For more on Lydia L’Scabies, visit www.instagram.com/lydialscabies

For more on Eva Serration, visit www.instagram.com/evaserration

For more from Eat Sleep Drag Repeat, visit www.esdrevents.co.uk

For more from The Glee Club, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk