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July 6, 2018July 6, 2018

BREVIEW: Valley of the Kings @ Quantum Exhibition Centre 29.06.18

“One sock, or two?”

Nursing a pint of cider, I have found myself advising a drag king on the appropriate amount of stuffing for their underwear. I am no longer a writer, nor a photographer – I am now, in the words of performer Phillip Phallus, a Codpiece Consultant. It’s a title I neither expected to have nor feel that I deserve, but I’m flattered nevertheless. After debating the size different between trainer and football socks, we agree on a single sock. Two seems like overkill.

The venue for Valley of the Kings is the Quantum Exhibition Centre in the middle of Digbeth – a trek, but worth it regardless (and if you lose your way, just keep an eye out for the ‘Thigh Kingdom Comes’ signs that are dotted along Lower Trinity Street). Advertised by a jaunty geometric sign handcrafted by Kali who runs KUCHE at the Ort Café, the small doors lead you into a towering warehouse ran by the charity Nightlife Outreach, who deal with issues from mental health to homelessness to substance abuse. It’s great knowing that tonight not only are you supporting the performers present, but your well-earned money that you spend on the bar is going towards a great cause too.

I’m ushered into a small room off the main warehouse, in which the crowd are dotted across numerous sofas. Soon, the night is in full swing. First up is Abel Valentine, who struts on to a redubbed version of the Shrek fairy tale narrative, depicting their parent’s horror at giving birth to a “f***ing drag king” before launching into a lip sync to the very apt ‘Gay Bar’ by Electric Six. Capering across the room, they sing into the faces of the audience with glee, grabbing their hands and forcing them to dance.

Following Abel is Uffa Fox and Great Britain, who perform a rather bizarre yet hilarious dance and lip sync to ‘Tight Little Island’. Although everyone’s performances are short, it’s still enough to capture their joy and enthusiasm at having a stage on which to perform. Lucius Blac is amazing, performing ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ before dragging a blow up doll clad in lingerie on stage and slow dancing with it to finish.

Wavy Davy drops to their knees while strumming a pink electric guitar along to a Prince track, and I can’t help but marvel at the confidence all the performers seem to have tonight. Phillip Phallus (or One Sock Phillip as they are now known) performs a Clockwork Orange inspired piece, sauntering on stage cloaked in a flasher mac before casting it aside in favour of a pair of comically large white Y-Fronts. No details are spared for the performers, right down to the glass of ‘milk’ which Phillip chugs down at the end of their performance.

Eager for some crowd participation, Valentine takes to the stage again to announce a ‘Manliest Man’ competition. The ensuing chaos is hilarious – participants are forced to dance their ‘manliest’ dance before being told to grab ‘manly’ items from members of the crowd. These include watches, a beer (not a cider as one unlucky competitor learnt mind) and a pair of trainers. After five rounds, Phillip Phallus is crowned the winner and presented with a rather garish tiara which stays glued to their head for the rest of the night.

Johnny Gash wanders on stage to strum along to ‘Personal Jesus’, clad in a black leather jacket and dark sunglasses. Lucius Blac then returns to the stage to perform my favourite act of the night, singing along to Panic at the Disco’s ‘Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time’. In the final chorus, they produce a bottle of Moët champagne and empty it over their head, dousing themselves in gold glitter. It’s simple, but effective – or maybe I’m just a sucker for theatrics. Who knows. By now, it’s almost 11pm and I start to gather my things. The party is still in full swing however, and the Britalo Kings emerge on stage to perform a 40-minute dance set.

In the dressing room, I strike up a conversation with one of the performers. We begin to discuss the impact of Valley of the Kings on their life, and the night takes a slightly harrowing turn. I’m told how their family views their lifestyle with disgust, and how their sister attempted to force them into a gay conversion therapy. We discuss how they’ve travelled for miles to perform tonight, and how their family are totally unaware of where they are.

It’s heartbreaking – they’re not much older than me, and the thought of them having to travel so far from home in order to explore their gender expression angers me. It serves as a constant, albeit sad, reminder that despite the fun and games, events such as Valley of the Kings serve as key safe spaces for individuals to express themselves with no boundaries.

For more on Valley of the Kings, visit www.facebook.com/ValleyOfTheKingsBirmingham

For from the Quantum Exhibition Centre, visit www.quantumexhibitioncentre.com

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018

BPREVIEW: Valley of the Kings @ Quantum Exhibition Centre 29.06.18

Words by Eleanor Sutcliffe

On Friday 29^th June, Valley of the Kings (VOTK) will be hosting another ‘gender expanding’ open mic night – this time at the Quantum Exhibition Centre, 77 Upper Trinity Street, Digbeth.

As opposed to tickets, the event is being marketed as a ‘pay what you can’ night with the suggested donation between £3 and £6. This latest Valley of the Kings begins at 8pm and is scheduled to run until late – for di rect event info, visit the Facebook Event Page by clicking here.

Scratch below the surface of Birmingham’s drag scene and you’ll find events such as Valley of the Kings. This is open mic night, but not as we know it – as opposed to acoustic renditions of pop rock stalwarts, expect to see ‘gender adventurers’ cavorting across the stage and lip syncing to their songs of choice.

The ‘rules’ of the evening are fairly simple: message the VOTK Facebook Event Page to book a performance slot, decide on your character, turn up, and perform. Or just watch, if you’re an introvert like me. And for those moments of last minute bravery, the VOTK hosts are also offering a ‘newbie nursery’ for people who decide to perform on the night, where they can get to Quantum slightly earlier and request a song to perform once the audience arrives. Performers who pre-book are guaranteed free entry and a changing room (saving you an awkward Uber ride over) with Glittercreep Face & Body Art on hand throughout the night to cover any available skin with, you guessed it, copious amounts of glitter. Wonderful.

For the budding performer, this is a fun and embracing opportunity to dip your toe into Birmingham’s ever growing drag scene; VOTK is one of the few monthly ‘gender expanding’ events that Birmingham currently has to offer, and the open mic setup allows you to trial a character to your heart’s content. With more established personas such as Lucius Blac, Abel Valentine, Dean the Destroyer and (our team’s personal favorite) Johnny Gash performing, it’s clear that there are few boundaries to what’s good to go on stage. And whilst drag queens are a prominent fixture on Birmingham’s event calendar, it’s always refreshing to see a night this inclusive – where individuals of any gender, style, or ability are welcome to perform.

But as the VOTK Facebook Event Page says, this is ‘an exploratory dig into your inner drag demon. Excavate the hidden gems of your pseudo macho womb by miming along to your favorite song in front of fellow gender adventurers.’ Which although sounds slightly terrifying still fills me with excitement. From the safety of my seat, at least.

Valley of the Kings brings its next open mic night to the Quantum Exhibition Centre in Digbeth on Friday 29^th June. For direct event information, visit the Facebook Event Page at www.facebook.com/events/1462982623847192/

For more on Valley of the Kings, visit www.facebook.com/pg/ValleyOfTheKingsBirmingham

For from the Quantum Events Centre, visit www.quantumexhibitioncentre.com

May 1, 2018May 1, 2018

BREVIEW: Opulence Presents Mother’s Meeting with Charity Kase @ Bar Jester 28.04.18

Words & illustrations by Emily Doyle

Opulence promised a brand new performance night with Mother’s Meeting and the people have turned out for it. Drag fans fill the basement of Bar Jester, staring expectantly at the mural of nude men that decorates the back of the stage.

Dahliah Rivers welcomes the crowd. She wears a gold floor length art deco style dress, and fiery red hair tumbles down her shoulders.

Jenna Davinci is first to perform. She begins lip syncing to Hi Fashion’s ‘Amazing’, which is interrupted by Meryl Streep’s iconic ‘Cerulean’ monologue from The Devil Wears Prada. By the time Davinci is gesticulating along to Milk’s ‘Touch the Fashion’, a clear theme has emerged. Despite all this, she looks perfectly at home in horizontal stripes.

Jay Andre bounces on stage to the opening bars of Grimes’ electro-pop anthem ‘Kill V. Maim’ to the delight of the crowd. Her fishnet bodysuit is trimmed with a fringe of plastic spikes; they rustle as she dances, bristling like cheerleader pom poms. Andre‘s routine is excitable and high energy – a fitting tribute to Grimes herself.

Nora Virus wears a chintz bodysuit with a face hood, complete with a red collar and matching fishnet tights. Her melding of twee florals and skintight fetishwear results in a look that can only be described as Cath Clubkidston. Virus razzle-dazzles the audience with a routine to Victoria Wood’s ‘The Ballad of Barry and Freda’. During the week, Virus puzzled her online followers by asking around for a sturdy tea trolley. It all makes sense when, as Wood’s vocals surge over the PA, Virus comes careening across the stage on one:

“This folly, is jolly,

Bend me over backwards on me hostess trolley.

Let’s do it, let’s do it tonight!”

I caught up with Virus after the show and asked what had inspired her inaugural Mother’s Meeting performance.

“When we came up with the name, my first thoughts were of 1950’s housewives at a Tupperware party, enjoying afternoon tea. I’m a huge Victoria Wood fan, she’s an absolute legend, and I stumbled across ‘The Ballad of Barry and Freda’, which I hadn’t heard for years! I couldn’t stop laughing and instantly knew I wanted to perform this. The whole idea just seemed fucked up. I’d be lip syncing to something your mom and dad would be laughing at back in the day, but dressed like something they’d have nightmares about.”

Closing the opening set of the night, Charity Kase makes her first appearance. In the advent of Ru Paul’s Drag Race the term ‘sickening’ has been thrown around to describe some drag looks. But in this instance it seems justified: Kase wears a floor length nun’s habit, but her face is a mess of grimy bandages.

Followers of her work will have been expecting an element of horror tonight, but no one can have been ready for this. Makeup obscures her mouth and eyes, so they appear as gaping holes. To the sounds of ‘Stay’ by Shakespeare’s Sister she tears off her costume, revealing an inverted cross chained to her chest. Kase looms over the shrouded cadaver she wheeled on stage with her, and with a flash of red light tears into it with a sickle. When she steps back, she is holding a blood drenched appendage aloft. No prizes for guessing what appendage that might be…

After a much needed interval, hostess Dahliah Rivers treats the crowd to a glittering routine ‘Raise the Roof’ from Andrew Lippa’s 1997 musical The Wild Party. It seems a fitting choice to kick off the second set, and Rivers luxuriates in the glamour of it.

Elliott Barnicle emerges from the DJ booth to do a number. He struts across the stage in his trademark silver leotard to the sugar-sweet pop of Little Mix’s ‘Hair’. The performance continues on a theme, with snippets of Brooke Candy’s ‘Don’t Touch My Hair Hoe’, Alaska Thunderfuck’s ‘This Is My Hair’, and Willow Smith’s ‘Whip My Hair’. The last of these sees Barnicle, who is as usual sporting his boyish haircut, produce a handful of blonde extensions and whirl them around.

No mother’s meeting would be complete without an appearance from Birmingham’s own drag matriarch, Yshee Black. Although it’s a Saturday night, Black has graced us with her Sunday best for a gospel inspired number. She sets off her blue suit-dress with a matching eye shadow. Her rousing performance is the perfect penultimate act of the night.

Returning to close the show, Charity Kase wears a pink satin nightgown and carries a Nestle Dairy Box aloft. The top half of her face is a disconcerting mask. Shanks & Bigfoot’s ‘Sweet Like Chocolate’ begins to play. She saunters through the crowd towards the stage, flipping her Barbie-blonde ringlets in the faces of audience members. She offers the box of chocolates around before stuffing them into her mouth by the handful.

Throughout the lip sync, Kase goes on to consume multiple bars of Galaxy. The majority of these are produced from the depths of her frilly white underwear, and spat out again at the audience. She manages not to miss a beat of the song. When the track finishes she is sprawled on the stage, covered in melted chocolate. The next morning I find a lump of partially chewed fudge on my shoe.

The Mother’s Meeting crowd file out onto the Queensway. In true maternal fashion, Nora Virus is diligently checking that all the audience are either part of her flock heading to the The Nightingale or are getting home safely. Later, I get her thoughts on Charity Kase.

“Charity blew me away. Both performances were so well thought out. I’m always here for the strange and unusual! I’m a queer kid in both meanings of the word and she is right up my alley…”

Opulence have pulled it off tonight. I ask Virus what’s next for the group.

“Opulence are a real diverse bunch of queens. We have theatre queens, comedy queens, deathdrop bitches, the lot. You want variety, we got it honey! No two Mother’s Meetings will ever be the same. We plan to showcase the best of U.K drag in Birmingham, as well as other styles of performance. You just wait to see who we have for Mother’s Meeting part two.”

For more on Charity Kase, visit www.charitykase.co.uk

For more from Opulence, visit www.facebook.com/opulencebirmingham

For more from Bar Jester, visit www.barjester.co.uk