David Hoyle’s Seaside Getaway
Marlborough Theater
Sunday, February 28
Notorious ‘anti-drag queen’, performance artist, avant-garde cabaret artist, singer, actor and comedian, David Hoyle presented a new work to mark the end of LGBT History Month 2016. An evening of painful truths, unyielding love and Hoyle’s characteristic lacerating wit.
For full details of the event, click here:
What can you say about the sublime Mr Hoyle that hasn’t been said before? This show was his usual compelling, seductive blend of daft, delightful, surreal, visceral honesty, dismissive love, cold reading, love distribution, emphatic and raw. I’ve seen David Hoyle many times, in many places and he always makes me laugh, and think and then laugh and think and then guffaw with a belly laugh that is linked in with shock, and a warm delight that we have such a national treasure in our lives and theaters.
He sang touching love songs accompanied to the radio static recorded by the Voyager probe from the rings of Saturn, provided atmosphere and a moment’s reflection on the continued incarceration, murder and imprisonment of the LGBT victims of the Nazi regime by the Russian, British and American forces (not the French it’s worth noting) after the Allied liberation of the concentration camps, danced to the Birdie song with a manic determination and abstract charm and sat and chatted about sex, ageing and love.
Like a cozy Kafka in a kaftan Hoyle can’t be trusted to stay safe, he’s Doris Stokes with a sly wink and a Kalashnikov, he’s a charming charm offensive who’s offensiveness is charming. I adore him, as did the whole audience. His sideways glances and deft timing of shrugs and fluttering eyelashes shows us he knows exactly what he’s up to. His fierce fragility is a sight to behold, and he reminds us with his sashaying Northern frankness that we are all here for but a brief moment and that we should relax, turn to the person next to us and smile.
My young companion had not seen David Hoyle before (imagine!) and left agog and laughing. Every young LGBT person should spend an hour or so with Hoyle.
David Hoyle is one of the most accomplished performers who grace our stages and I would encourage, urge and embolden you to go see him next time he is in town. He’s always kind enough to share his stage with a local or up and coming performer and this weekend he entertained us with the delights of Lydia Le’Scabies who was a charmingly brittle chanteuse and a soft frothy foil to the shuddering rusty roller coaster abyss of Hoyle’s wit.
The perfect end to a month of celebrating LGBT history. Thoughtful, funny and QUEER!!
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