Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author and podcaster who has appeared many times on BBC Radio 4 programmes, including Woman’s Hour and Four Thought. Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and followed a trilogy of solo shows investigating the psychology of love and relationships.
Rosie has been crowned ‘the queen of breakups’ by BBC Radio 4. She’s bringing The Breakup Monologues to Brighton Spiegeltent in May. Comedians Zoe Lyons and Hal Cruttenden plus broadcaster Bibi Lynch will be joining her on stage. They’ll be recording a special edition of her acclaimed podcast (a British Podcast Award nominee in 2020 and recommended by The Observer, Chortle, Metro and Psychologies).
Rosie has been chronicling the intricacies of relationships and breakups for many years. It all began when an ex dumped her by email and Rosie gained a kind of revenge by correcting said ex’s spelling.
She looks at the science behind love and the minefield of online dating. She approaches the topic as a comedian so her takes are always amusing. She considers the strange dilemma of a person who identifies as polyamorous but happens to be single. As well as considering the nature of serial monogamists – does monogamy have any meaning if you’re dealing with multiple cases of monogamy?
Listen on the podcast
We spoke to Rosie about her latest book and upcoming show on the podcast.
The Breakup Monologues is one of our comic highlights of this year’s Brighton Fringe. If her podcast series is anything to go by, the show will be as entertaining as it is informative.
You’ll learn about the new language of dating, from ghosting to lesser known terminology such as breadcrumbing and orbiting. How exactly should you breakup with someone? What happens if they fall off their bike, hit their head and forget they’ve been dumped (something we discussed with Rosie on the podcast!)? Do we need to develop a more nuanced understanding of monogamy? These are some of the questions Rosie will be exploring. She also brings her uniquely queer perspective to these questions.
As Rosie explained when we interviewed her, some straight people experience their first real trauma when they divorce. LGBT+ people are more likely to have been acquainted with trauma from a young age, so maybe we do have a head start when it comes to relationships, and whether we choose to maintain them or end them.
If you like socially conscious performance art in the style of David Hoyle and witchy women from the imaginative worlds of Angela Carter, then SHOWWOMEN might be up your street. Written by Olivier award-winning performance maker Marisa Carnesky, SHOWWOMEN is a feminist rewrite: The untold herstory of British working-class entertainment from immigrant, queer, activist and occult perspectives.
It’s a contemporary homage to seminal female performers, reimagined by Marisa alongside 3 other dynamic Queer women. Marisa is Brighton based and SHOWWOMEN will be at ACCA at the end of May as part of a national tour.
The performers she’ll be celebrating include 1940s body magic star Koringa, a 1930s pioneer clown Lulu Adams 1920s female dare-devil Marjorie Dare and 1880s teeth hanging aerialist superstar Miss La La. These women may have made a splash in their day but you probably haven’t heard of them.
The stories that get told and the people that get remembered are mediated by social and economic forces that tend to overlook working class, female and queer artists. This show will attempt to give these forgotten performers the credit they deserver. You’ll get to meet (in a fictional way!) the extraordinary women of variety performance from a century ago. SHOWWOMEN compares them to the lived experiences of exceptional performers today.
Lulu, 1939
Marisa Carnesky will narrate the stories and perform alongside guest stars hair hanger/comedienne Fancy Chance, sword and spoken word artist Livia Kojo Alour and physical and fire performer Lucifire, interweaving live action, in-depth interviews and archival footage to create a dreamlike landscape mixing death defying stunts, strange and emotive acts, political resistance and secret backstage rituals. The show asks why and how women perform dangerous and taboo acts and explores the legacy of forgotten and marginalised diverse British entertainers. If you enjoyed reading Nights at the Circus then this is one you won’t want to miss.
The show will be witchy and rather camp. You’ll see people in full leopard print, naked crocodile women scaling walls, ladders of swords, live hair hanging, never ending pom poms and ectoplasmic clowns, SHOWWOMEN channels entertainment heritage to create visons of new matriarchal performance futures.
“I am not the greatest Showman. Because I am not a man. I am not a showboy and I am no longer a showgirl. What am I now? I am a Showwoman, with two Ws in the middle, one for the show and one for the woman”. Marisa Carnesky, 2022
Shipbuilding is a festival by Certain Blacks, named after Elvis Costello’s symbolic anti-war song. The festival reflects upon the climate of C19, Brexit and Black Lives Matter. It’s a topical festival featuring a series of shows built around true stories. Staged at Rich Mix, Shipbuilding features Livia Kojo Alour A.K.A MisSa with her debut full length show, Black Sheep on Sunday February 27 at 7.30pm.
Livia Kojo Alour is an internationally renowned sword swallower, circus artist and burlesque artist. She is also a poet, musician, an in-demand public speaker and theatre maker. Her work challenges stereotypes about black women, chiefly pointing out the challenges faced by black women who refuse to conform to them. This will be a frank and deeply personal show.
She has strong Brighton roots. Her artistic mentor is Brighton-based Marisa Carnesky. Black Sheep takes you through her past on a more personal level, digging deeper into her journey from Hamburg to the UK as a circus performer with a daring reputation. This is a great show to see if you like your cabaret to be a little more challenging. Dare I say avant-garde? Fans of David Hoyle would no doubt approve.
Livia moved from Germany to the UK ten years ago. She has spent a long time analysing life-long feelings of self-hatred and otherness are part internalised racism and part survival techniques. Her new show is about reclaiming identity. It’s also about survival.
‘Working with Livia Kojo Alour on her new work Black Sheep was exciting and inspiring for me a theatre practitioner. Livia is both highly skilled as a performer and experimental as a writer/devisor. Her voice as a theatre maker is important and new, she articulates complex experiences and issues around her identify and decolonising performance – exploring her material with honesty, wit and strong aesthetic styling. She combines spoken word, dance, song and live art to a thrilling effect, moving her audiences and leaving them with an important theatrical experience. As a collaborator she is highly committed and willing to work hard to find the material- taking on dramaturgical ideas and advice and finessing her material to high production standards. I look forward to contributing to this important artist and her work in the near future’ Marisa Carnesky.
Certain Blacks takes place February 18-27 2022 @ Hoxton Hall. £8 cons.
Stuart Linden Rhodes was a teacher in the ’90s. By night he accidentally became a chronicler of northern England’s gay nightlife. His photos capture long-lost gay bars and clubs.
Before he began to share them on Instagram (@linden_archives), the photos hadn’t been seen in decades. His Instagram account became a hit and the photos have now been gathered together in Out And About With Linden, a limited-edition photography book.
What inspired you to put the book together? “I put all these pictures up on Instagram, thinking a few people might like them, but that turned into thousands. People were asking me if there’d be a book. I was interviewed by Joseph Ingham in Vice magazine and I mentioned the book idea to him. He said ‘I’ll help you.’ So here we are, we ended up with a book.
MILK & HONEY, YORK – 1994
“My day job was teaching. Photography was just a hobby. The first time I did photography for a magazine was in 1989. There was a free magazine in Manchester called Scene Out. They had a ludicrous competition: the prize was a free ride on the Orient Express. Everyone was like yeah, right. The competition was to take photographs and write a review of the gay scene where you lived. So I wrote a little review of Harrogate’s scene.”
Was there a gay scene in Harrogate in 1989? “If you can call Hales Bar a gay scene then yes, kind of. Of course it didn’t win but I was a runner-up. It just coincided with another friend of mine in Leeds who’d started a gay magazine called All Points North. He asked me to be their scene reviewer and photographer. I thought OK, free nights out! And that’s how it started. I got myself a decent camera and I was away.”
MANCHESTER CARNIVAL 1993/94
“The gay scene began to change in around 1993-94. It went from small bars and clubs to big venues that held a thousand people. In the ’80s most gay bars were run down. They were underfunded by the breweries, but the breweries started to take an interest in the pink pound. You had entrepreneurs like Terry George in Leeds putting on big events. It all took off. You realised that you were in the middle of something.”
“My section in All Points North was called Out And About With Linden. I would go to as many bars as I could and then write a review of the scenes in different cities. Where do the leather queens and all the other subculture groups go? People were reading it and choosing whether they wanted to go to Birmingham for a weekend. It was almost like a holiday brochure. We were inspiring gay tourism.”
MANCHESTER CARNIVAL 1993/94
Where were the most happening places? “Number one was always Manchester – it still is. When I first went there were just two or three bars, The Goose, Napoleons, Rembrandts. All of a sudden all these other bars opened like Mantos on Canal Street and New York New York. Birmingham was a close second, but no other city quite managed to have a village like Canal Street.”
The photos would indicate that you were a disco dolly. “I tried to be invisible, I am not a disco dolly by any means! I was a voyeur. There are two types of photographs in the book. There are group photos where people are posing and looking at the camera, but my favourite ones are the candid shots.”
“The ones that capture those moments of people on the dancefloor, living their best lives. I’d then go up to them afterwards and ask if I could use the photo in Gay Times or All Points North.” The only ‘no’ he received was from an angry bouncer in Manchester. Everyone else was more than happy to have their moment captured.
MANCHESTER CARNIVAL 1993/94
Stuart’s photos anticipate the rise of social media. Now everyone is taking photos of their nights out. No night out is ephemeral these days, but in the ’90s they were – unless someone like Stuart was there recording. He captured moments that would have disappeared otherwise.
“People contacted me through Instagram having found their past lives in the photos. Sometimes they’re saying ‘look at my hair, what was I thinking?’ But you also get sad comments about people who’ve passed away.”
How does it feel when you look back at those photos now? “It feels like another life. It’s a time I look back at with great fondness. I won’t say I get emotional but it evokes a lot of memories of that decade. I surprise myself actually. Sometimes I think that was a good photo, did I really take that?”
Neil Bartlett, OBE, entered the theatre world in 1983. He worked for Theatre de Complicite and later became Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith in 1994. Bartlett is also an author and playwright. He published his first book Who Was That Man: A Present for Mr. Oscar Wilde in 1988.
Address Book is his latest novel. Comprised of seven different stories and seven different addresses, the novel takes you on a tour of queer history from the Victorian era to the present day. We caught up with Neil to find out more
What theme threads the seven stories together? “They’re all about what happens behind a front door. The front door is the dividing line between the outside world and your personal world. We never know what goes on behind somebody else’s front door, but we want to know. That started to coalesce in my mind with the question what stories don’t we hear, especially queer stories. The stories we’ve kept hidden or the stories about people who supposedly don’t matter.”
Neil Bartlett
“I sat down one night and tried to write a list of every place I’ve ever lived. There was a penny drop moment where I realised I’d just passed through those places. In every room you’ve ever lived in, someone else has also lived there.”
“I went back to seven front doors that had been significant places in my life. I stood outside them, stared at them, and I asked the walls of those rooms to tell me a story about someone I didn’t know.”
“In the book there’s a doctor, there’s a pregnant housewife – people who are utterly unlike me. Yet in some way I was able to channel them and hear their stories.”
“People often ask what a book is about and I never know. If I did I could just write everyone a letter and say it’s about x, y and z. If I had to sum it up I’d say it’s about courage. The seven people you hear in the book all need it. They all discover that they have it already. One story takes place at the height of the AIDS epidemic, another takes place in the home of someone who’s just lost their life partner.”
“I’m 63, I’ve been queer since the day I was born, and I’ve been working as an out queer artist since I was 21. It’s something I want to pass on: as queer people we have every reason to hope. We have this incredible history, this incredible culture, this queer family of ancestors. If we turn to them they’re going to tell us everything we need to know about how to deal with the different situations we find ourselves in.”
Your first book about Oscar Wilde, the ultimate queer ancestor. “It’s been a thread throughout my work. Stories give us strength, they don’t just pass the time. When I wrote my first book, I was living in a pretty terrifying council flat on the Isle of Dogs. It was the height of the first wave of the British AIDS crisis. You couldn’t walk home safely at night. You’d be spat at at bus stops. You couldn’t go into a newsagent because every newspaper was screaming hatred at you.”
“I was part of a posse of glorious queens. We’d go dancing at Heaven and camp it up on the nightbus. I needed food for my soul though. That’s why I turned to Oscar Wilde. Here was a man who was once the most celebrated personality in London, and he was destroyed by homophobia. His two year sentence of hard labour killed him. The flipside of the story is that he went through that ordeal with incredible dignity and courage. He’s the visible tip of an iceberg; of an astonishing network of friends, lovers, artists, drag queens, immigrants – all of whom came through his life”
Do you have a favourite character in the new book? “I love them all. I can only create out of sympathy. To answer the question though I’d have to say the pregnant housewife. She lives on the top floor of a crappy old Victorian house. I lived there in the early 1980s with two flatmates and a thousand mice. I love her. She’s pregnant with her first child and she keeps a diary of her pregnancy. She finds out she has a queer neighbour. She’s never met a queer person and even though their worlds have nothing to do with each other, they form a strange alliance.”
“I love her voice. I felt like I didn’t write that story, I just typed it. I love the way she describes having sex too. She grew up in a household where you didn’t talk about those things at all. I have to pinch myself and remind myself that the characters are not real. I finished the book in lockdown so those voices in my head were almost the only voices I heard for weeks.”
You’ve been with your partner for 32 years. They say 6 months is a long time in gay years. What advice can you give us about sustaining a relationship for so long? “Oh lord, well, it kinda helps if you’re mad about them, which I am. He’s away at the moment and talking to him on the phone this morning, you get that little kick, just like the first time I met him. Practical advice: Talk and don’t lie, you really don’t need to. If you ever find yourself caught in a situation, don’t wait three days or three years, just be honest. Tact is also great. Learn the difference between tact and lie. Tact is not barreling in suddenly dumping everything that’s in your head. “Hello, darling, I’m not going to ask you about your day but here’s everything you need to know about mine.” Also, when did you last buy the person you love flowers? There you are, that’s three things: Don’t lie, tact and flowers!”
How’s it been working with Inkandescent, the independent publishing house? “It’s been fantastic. My last book was released by a big commercial publisher. It was no fun. They don’t really get my queer world, and I certainly don’t get their world: it’s posh and only about money and reputation. Working with Nathan and Justin is the opposite. They said, ‘We really love you, we’ll publish your book. It’s just the two of us around our kitchen table and we don’t have a marketing budget.’ They really believe that books matter. Everything now is about marketing, it doesn’t matter what the product is. That’s rule number one of capitalism: never mind if the product is any good, is the advert good?”
“Also, they’re young and gorgeous. They even got me on Twitter. I was like, oh god, what is this thing? It’s not my world but we’re doing it. I’m Tweeting away and Facebooking.”
“So, I offer you my story. If it can be of any use, take it, have it and share it. Talk to me about it. I’m getting so many people coming back to me telling me they found themselves in the book. Other people’s stories have meant so much to me, and it’s what’s made my life possible: the inspiration that stories can give us.”
Sister Sledge formed in 1971. They achieved global success with their 1979 album We Are Family. That record produced a series of classic hits including He’s the Greatest Dancer, Lost in Music, Thinking of You and of course the title track.
They captured the zeitgeist in the disco era, and their music continues to resonate with people who weren’t even born in the 70s. We caught up with founding member Kathy Sledge to discuss their legendary career.
What can we expect from the Sister Sledge show in London this May? “I’ve been producing festivals and concerts. Things like Mighty Hoopla, and it was really fun. The integrity of the music means everything to me. Now I’m hyped about O2 Indigo because I’ve worked there before; it’s going to be an electric concert. So put your seatbelt on!”
The Mighty Hoopla has become one of the biggest LGBT+ festivals in the UK. Did you enjoy playing there? “It was incredible. I was nineteen when I recorded Thinking of You and We Are Family. And I’m seeing these kids, sometimes with their mums, knowing every lyric. They weren’t even born when I recorded them.”
“My voice is stronger than it’s ever been. When I did those songs in the early days I wasn’t even allowed to hear them until it was time to record them; songs like We Are Family. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards believed in spontaneity. Nile and I have remained great friends. We laugh about it to this day. I used to ask him if people would even play our music. He would say ‘It’s going to be huge.’ I loved his confidence, and he was right of course.”
“Even songs like He’s the Great Dancer would be fed to me line by line. So it’d be ‘One night in a disco,’ OK, cut. And then I’d get the next line: ‘On the outskirts of Frisco.’ I didn’t get it then but I trusted them. These producers were in their twenties but they were geniuses. They had hit after hit, and we still hear their music to this day. They had a formula that worked for them and the spontaneity was part of that: the artists not knowing the songs too well.”
Nearly every track on the We Are Family album was a massive hit. “I know, and it’s a massive hit all over again. The pandemic worked for me in his respect. People would Zoom into my living room with me singing it. The music resurfaced, especially Thinking of You with D-Nice and Club Quarantine: even Michelle Obama was involved. Thinking of You became the theme song. It made me the queen of quarantine, although I don’t call myself that!”
“I’m a huge fan of Freddie Mercury. He was uninhibited and he knew his gift, but I never knew mine growing up. When I saw Bohemian Rhapsody I was balling when the credits rolled. I started watching Queen documentaries. They talked about how they opened with We Will Rock You. I was like that’s it, I’m opening with Lost In Music.”
“At my show, when the lights come up you see the silhouettes of the dancers. The choreography is authentic early Sister Sledge, and then you see the huge screen of the sisters, and then you hear the strings of Lost in Music. So you’re on your chair at the beginning of the show. By the time we get to Thinking of You near the end it’s very special.”
Listen on the podcast
“Originally I Want Your Love was our record, and He’s The Greatest Dancer was theirs (Neil and Bernard’s). At the last minute they flipped it. You can hear my sisters and I singing background on I Want Your Love. Years later we were asked to sing the background on Material Girl for Madonna.” Nile Rodgers of course produced the Like A Virgin Album. “He always mixed in different artists. Luther Vandross sings on every track on the We Are Family album. Once you know he’s one there you can hear Luther’s voice.”
Do you have a favourite Sister Sledge song? “Thinking of You hands down.” I feel like I was born knowing the lyrics to your biggest hits. “You probably were! I did some gigs at Soho House and I’m loving how younger audiences seem to know all the songs. I make sure the vocals and the music are just like they were on day one.”
“When I go to concerts I want to hear the hits. I can do 90-minutes of our hits and it stays new. I might want to hear one or two new songs at a concert but I want all the hits as well. It’s like an education hearing the new stuff, but I want to dance.”
“After everything we’ve been through in the last two years, people are running towards the feel good music. I think that’s why Thinking of You gets an electric response live. From my vantage point I just see smiles everywhere. It was the same thing with the roaring twenties: people wanted to feel good. I’m happy that my music does that.”
Charity Shop Sue is a legend, she’s an icon and she has mixed feelings about Christmas. We spoke to Sue to find out what she has planned for the festive season. While we spill some tea, you better get back on that till, laydeh.
1. Hi Sue. Will you be getting into the festive spirit at Sec*hand Chances?
I always like the volunteers to dress the shop up, it keeps them motivated when they help curate their own space. I doubt I’ll get to enjoy it like most people cos I’ll be making sure the takings are going up to help those that need it. Charity is a selfless act.
2. Can Christmas get a bit tense with the family? We all saw the arguments you had with your sister.
Not gonna lie, I’d prefer to be in my own space and just pop to Belinda’s to see her for half an hour. However, circumstances have dictated that I live with her for the foreseeable future so that means fireworks most days. But I’ll say this, it’s nice to have company to have tea and watch TV at night with. I got so used to being alone I forgot I was lonely.
3. What advice would you give to someone who’s dreading Christmas?
It depends what they’re dreading about it. In general I’d say find your happiness and safe space. Don’t go spending the time with people who don’t appreciate you. Belinda is a B***h to me sometimes, but I know she appreciates me. And I first realised this when she came to my fashion show in the shop, she appreciated my vision and showed up to support it.
4. Do you enjoy being a gay icon?
It’s like receiving an MBE that actually means something. Biggest honour ever and I take it very seriously.
5. Who would you say does the best impression of you?
There are a fair few drag queens that I’ve seen that have really got my essence. Of course Krystal Versace did a great me on snatch game, the attention to detail was magic, very underrated actually. Also a lovely Irish queen called Liam X Bee has tuned into my frequency and embodied me. So many others too, I’ll compile a list next time.
6. You should have your own Netflix series. Just saying.
Well I agree with you darlin, I’d even title it ‘Sue’s Game’ cos it’d be their most watched thing of all times. I have so much more to show about myself and the shop.
7. Were you happy with the way you came across on the TV documentary?
No, not really. For a long time I felt stitched up and belittled. A lot of the best bits were left out. I put trust in the 3 @deadswetttv boys who filmed it and they edited the reality they wanted to see. Now I have come around to it after a lot of thinking. It seems my no nonsense managing style has impressed a lot of people and the public seem to mostly love it. So maybe them boys knew what they were doing all along.
Most singers would consider an early retirement after seeing Diamanda Galás perform live. She has an operatic vocal range no combination of adjectives can describe.
Diamanda confronts the most difficult topics, from extreme isolation to the AIDS epidemic. She gives voice to the most marginalised people in society. You wouldn’t play one of her albums in the background at a cocktail party.
That being said, she’s one of the funniest and most charming interviewees I’ve had the privilege to encounter. Just don’t mention Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift in her presence.
Diamanda has reissued her self-titled second album. The A-side features ‘Panoptikon’, inspired by Jack Henry Abbott’s book In the Belly of the Beast. The second half of the album is dedicated to ‘ΤΡΑΓΟΥΔΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΑΙΜΑ ΤΩΝ ΔΟΛΟΦΟΝΗΜΕΝΩΝ’ (‘Song from the Blood of Those Murdered’), inspired by the victims of the 1967-74 Greek military junta. I caught up with Diamanda to find out more.
Do you see the two sides of your second album as companion pieces? “I do not see them as companion pieces but they were composed within the same few years, ‘ΤΡΑΓΟΥΔΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΑΙΜΑ ΤΩΝ ΔΟΛΟΦΟΝΗΜΕΝΩΝ’ (1980-81) and ‘Panoptikon’ (1983). I was asked to record them by Metalanguage Records in Berkeley.”
“That company took many risks on music very few would at the time, or today for that matter. Jack Henry Abbott’s piece was meant to show how a lifetime of institutionalisation only makes the heart harder, and the kill instinct quicker.”
“Norman Mailer’s little experiment failed. Did he think Jack Abbott would change because he smiled sweetly at Mailer in order to obtain the key to the door? I say this because I just received a note saying ‘How could you do a piece using a text by a man who would get out of prison, only to kill someone in a filling station?’ But that’s exactly my point.”
“Norman Mailer was intelligent but somewhat of a fool. He was a rich man so he didn’t know much about life. He gets this wild idea that he’s going to reform a murder, and like a lot of people in that position, they take the smile and personal attention that’s malignantly directed toward them as a sign of change. Of a new social aptitude which doesn’t exist.”
As an expert in isolation, how was your experience of lockdown? “The theme of isolation is first hand to me. It seems like a normative way of living and I still cannot see why many artists felt so deprived being alone. Lockdown is one of the only times I felt my way of life was normal. Human to human interface isn’t easy for all of us.”
You regained control of your catalogue in 2019. Was that a difficult process? “It took many years and I worked with several people to get it back. A lot of my work has been lost.”
“My recordings did freak out the distributors. I would show up in a country, perform, and ask how the record sales are going. I would hear things like ‘Oh, we haven’t ordered them.’ The guy would offer his hand to escort me out of the car and I’d tell him to get the fuck away from me. Record distributors that came to my concerts were not given gift tickets. They had to pay full price and sit at the back!”
“For so many businessmen, they assume that the limitations of their taste are mirrored in the audience. This is not true. When you consider these pedestrian persons being the filter of audience taste, it’s quite incredible. These people in general are below average thinkers.”
Your music is very extreme. Do you ever feel that you have to justify how extreme it is? “Never. Period. I cannot do anything that bores me, I am too spoiled! I have only thought of the music at all times and of myself. That’s why I followed The Sporting Life with Schrei 27; or The Plague Mass I followed with The Singer, and immediately afterwards Vena Cava.”
“I have to do what I hear, the cord changes take me there. I was composing Free Among The Dead from The Divine Punishment at Hunter’s Point, San Francisco, otherwise known as Decapitation Central. I kept hearing My World Is Empty Without You so I ended up working on both of them. I don’t see any musical contradictions.”
You dedicated much of your energy in the 80s and 90s to AIDS activism. This gave you a powerful connection with the LGBT+ community. “I have trouble with the idea of communities. The idea of ‘the gay community’ is a fiction. I think everyone knows that we are all individuals. And all Greeks know this. You put three Greeks in one room and you have another world war. We don’t agree with each other. Given the opportunity to disagree we will elaborate and digress, endlessly, and after twenty-five Greek coffees we’ll sleep.”
“However, when my brother told me he was homosexual, I was so relieved we had a great party that night, just the two of us.”
“There are human affinities. I rejoice a great deal with my gay friends. We have a filial reverence that is a mandate for any socialisation.”
“I cannot be around people with no humour. That’s why I only have two or three straight male friends. They don’t get it, they’re humourless. I’m not saying all, but most. Thinking about this question, I realised that my friends from Mexico, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Greece, all of them are gay. The women as well – although there are more straight women in that population.”
Will you be heading on the road in 2022? “I’m working on two albums and two installation pieces. It’s also very important for me to rerelease the five albums that deal with the epidemic, and release them properly. In terms of live performance, yes, I think it’s time to get back to doing shows.”
Do you think America can recover from the Trump presidency? “I don’t think America will recover from Obama, Trump or Biden Biden (as I call him). The magic show continues. However, unlike the serpents among us, I will not cheaply denigrate America whilst in England, or Germany whilst in France. I learnt that from the great Harald Bullerjahn, tour manager for Depeche Mode. He said ‘Do not be like those other rock people who go denigrating one country in another. That’s cheap.’ And he was so right. This gentleman gave me a hand when I needed it. He’s one of the great men that I adore.”
Is your vocal training as intense as the research process? “I can work on my research for eight hours straight. Singing for eight hours straight is not a good idea. I’ve been recording vocals in the studio every week for a while. I go in and I’ll say ‘Ok, I’m going to take lots of breaks, I’m going to be good to myself,’ and then I sing for five hours straight.”
“I’m paying for the studio and I don’t want to waste time. If I’m on a train of thought, I don’t want to stop because if I do I might lose it. I go into the studio with a smile on my face. I get ready in the morning, go across the street, get the cappuccino. The engineer is as determined (a polite way of putting it!) as I am. I just start working – he doesn’t like taking breaks. At some point he might see me in the corner with my head in my hands and say ‘Maybe she could have some tea now.’ It took him five sessions to realise I was actually torturing myself. I plan to be very well grounded and stop singing every hour, but somehow I just can’t do it. I wouldn’t recommend it. Then I might pass out for a day.”
“One must continue to study voice until the end. Throughout the years I have discovered different uses I can make of a voice, and I expand it with them. But this would not be possible if I didn’t not continue to study. The noble savage shrieking idea might be useful for a few years at the beginning of one’s career, but four decades requires more than the wildness of beasts. I see some singers now and I burst out laughing. It takes work to be a singer. It’s not about having a catharsis in front of your best friends. In the least sense of the word, catharsis is just doing your laundry in public, and the public couldn’t give a fuck because each of us has to wash our own god damn underwear at the end of the day.”
Do you have any plans to compose for orchestra? “It is vitally important to have more than two rehearsals if I’m performing within the orchestral context. If I’m conducting the orchestra myself I’d still need more than two rehearsals. As a performer it’s my role to incarnate the paradigm I’m presenting. This is rigorous. Doing a part with an orchestra when the proceedings have not been sufficiently rehearsed does not allow me to achieve that.”
“In other words you’re standing on stage like a puppet, which is absurd. Or you have to make a point of ignoring the conductor. Conductors, in many cases, have not looked at the music for more than three hours so they’ll never be able to cue you.”
“In my new work I’m incorporating different instruments played by TJ Troy, who’s a master drummer and percussionist. There’s also trombone, violin, church organ and other instruments; so this will be a grid, of sorts, for the way I’ll work.”
“I’ve had a few invitations to work with an orchestra. I worked with Lukas Foss many years ago. I also worked with Ensemble intercontemporain in the 90s.”
Tell us about some of the vocalists you really admire. “Individuated voices are very rare,” Diamanda explained. Here’s her take on some of those she admires.
“Sainkho Namtchylak (Tuva) and Tamia Valmont (Paris). Both combine endless melody with sharp-edged multi-timbred vocalizations. Two great improvisational singers of the avant garde.”
“Klaus Nomi. As a performer he was in every sense a star vocally and musically, and theatrically. His last performance devastated me. And I just discovered him a few months ago! The tragic voice of the AIDS Epidemic. An enormous figure, who performed while dying.”
“Pete Steele, porno star vocally, the thickest, deepest, and most resonant male voice I have ever heard in rock music. His physical attributes may also be described in a similar way. Nightly do I call upon his corpse!”
“Shirley Bassey, who straight men liked to satirize because she makes their dicks soft. A luscious, nuanced instrument, a phenomenal sense of time and turn of phrase. The Queen’s snap!”
“Klaus Kinski’s Brecht sprechgesang performances. The Succubus in Art and Life Immortalized. A huge vocabulary of vocal delivery which was a result of a mania for studying every form of acting and vocal technique. As a performer, the great later practitioner of the Schrei Theatre of Germany.”
“Manuel Agujetas Spain. The Most Radical Icon of Cante Jondo, whose voice is equal to the subjects of his songs-honor killings and the horrific loss of the parents, which invites suicide.”
What can we expect from your latest project? “I’m doing a new piece called Broken Gargoyles. It’s composed of two sections. One I’ve already presented as a sound installation in Hannover in a leper sanctuary. I’m working on the second part now. It may be called Garden of the Beast in reference to the homeless soldiers of WW1 with mutilated faces. The more I read about it the more untenable it is to me.”
“For some reason, my work always concerns itself with that kind of thing. With people forced into isolation. I don’t understand if there’s a correspondence between my preference for solitude and these works. I can’t quite explain it, except that I’ve always been like this. Just don’t say I was Born This Way!”
Greta Garbo is one of the biggest stars in the history of cinema. It’s now 80 years since she gave her final performance in The Two Faced Woman. That movie was her only flop. Stung by the lacklustre response to her poor casting in a screwball comedy, she left Hollywood and never acted again. She was 36 years old.
Garbo lived for another 50 years. Over that time, she become one of the world’s most famous recluses. How could the Divine Garbo, one of the most desired women in the world, just walk away? The hope for a potential Garbo comeback haunted the minds of many cineastes, but it wasn’t to be. Did Garbo ever regret walking away from Hollywood? We’ll never know. She wasn’t really prone to discuss her feelings in any detail. She remained a mystery to even her closest friends.
Robert Gottlieb is a revered literary editor and lifelong Garbo devotee. His latest book “Garbo” attempts to unravel the mystery of Hollywood’s most elusive star. He’s 90 years old so his age gives him something of an advantage. He’s been around long enough to remember when a Garbo comeback was a possibility.
It’s quite astonishing to consider how well known Garbo still is. Although her films have dated, some to the point of being all but forgotten, her name still resonates. She’s the first Golden Age Hollywood star Madonna name checks in Vogue.
Her films may have dated, but her performances are still captivating. She was able to elevate often clunky scripts, making them seem like high art, at least while she was on the screen. Her performance in Queen Christina is probably her best. It’s one Swedish queen playing another.
Greta Garbo
Garbo uttered her most famous line in Grand Hotel (“I want to be alone”). It seemed to sum up her life. She had a loathing of crowds and photographers. She made a point of covering her face when the press pursued her around the world: she wasn’t going to allow them to have a decent shot.
She never married or had children, but she had affairs with various men and women. In the later part of her life she didn’t seem to have any interest in pursing romantic relationships. In fact, she didn’t seem to have much interest in anything at all. She never said anything especially interesting. Her conversation was often whimsical, although she did have a decent, if fatalistic sense of humour.
One thing Garbo did have was charisma. People who met her over the years – even huge stars like Maria Callas – were dazzled to even be in her presence. In denying the public a curtain call after her final film, she created a Garbo vacuum. People filled it in by projecting their fantasies onto her. She was the international woman of mystery; the ultimate reclusive star. Kenneth Tynan said “What when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober.” In terms of her mystery, he said “We know little more about Garbo than we know about Shakespeare.”
So, how does a biographer approach a subject as difficult to pin down as Garbo? In some ways she was quite a simple person. Born into the Swedish peasantry in 1905, she dreamed of becoming an actress. It was quite an ambition for someone who came from nothing. Clearly, her ambition was fulfilled not long after she left drama school.
Throughout her years of success, she remained an unpretentious Swedish woman who wanted a simple life. She didn’t seem to derive much pleasure from becoming a superstar, or from her vast wealth. On the rare occasions she attended social events, she’d eventually say “I tank I go home now” and leave. She was always leaving, always on the run.
Robert Gottlieb looks at Garbo from every angle. He’s read everything that’s been published about her. The Garbo he brings to life in 2021 is a combination of banality and brilliance. Someone you can’t pin down. In other words, the same star who captivated audiences throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and then vanished, never to be forgotten.
An exhibition celebrating the work of Leigh Bowery will open in London in January. It will take place at The Fitzrovia Chapel, the only remaining building of the Middlesex Hospital, where Leigh died from AIDS on New Year’s Eve 1994.
Bowery has become something of a legend since his death. His work spanned fashion, art, music and more. With almost no budget, he created a series of extraordinary looks throughout the 80s. He anticipated the age of social media by a few decades. If he was around today he’d find a huge online following overnight.
We recently caught up with Sue Tilley, Leigh’s best mate, to discuss his life and work. She told us: “He did so much with the time he had. Before Leigh found out he had AIDS he’d have some days when he was so hungover he just laid on the sofa. We’d be on the phone chatting. But after he found out he was ill he worked every day. He knew he didn’t have time to waste.” Boy George immortalised Leigh in his musical Taboo.
According to the event organisers: “The Fitzrovia Chapel have worked with the Leigh Bowery Estate and in particular Nicola, whom he married shortly before his death, to create a stunning but poignant exhibition of Leigh’s costumes, presenting several of his iconic ‘looks’ against the backdrop of the gold mosaic ceiling and marble walls of the chapel. There will also be a specially produced short film with interviews with some of Leigh’s close friends and collaborators.”
This exhibition will be a great event to welcome in 2022 in style. Sue summed up Leigh’s legacy: “An inspiration to everyone of how to live your life. Don’t be scared and do what you want to do. If people don’t like it just carry on.”
London was different in the 80s, but Leigh’s approach to self-made fashion and self-expression places him firmly in the now. Have you seen Drag Race? Hello, the competition may as well have been designed for Leigh Bowery. He would have smashed every single challenge.
His life may have been cut short but his work lives on. You can see traces of Leigh in so many aspects of popular culture. You can find out more about Leigh Bowery’s life and art on a recent podcast episode we recorded with Sue Tilley.
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