About

Diverse Alarums: Queer Histories in Cabaret!

presented by the Diverse Alarums research project and Marlborough Productions

Tickets on sale soon...

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

Cut out images with colourful overlays of artists Charlie Wood, Emma Frankland, Dre Spisto, Tamm Reynolds aka Midgitte Bardot, Subira Joy, Prince of Persia, and Lasana Shabazz. The images sit on a parchment background with colourful stripes and historical illustrations showing a hand pointing, a foot being tickled by a hand holding a feather duster, and a musician playing a mandolin sitting on top of a giant sea monster.

Five leading LGBTQ+ cabaret artists have been working with researchers to create rip-roaring new acts inspired by intersectional queer histories, some famous, some forgotten. Hosted by award-winning artists, writers, and dramaturgs, Emma Frankland and Subira Joy, this thought-provoking event will challenge what you know and what you think about our queer past and future. The lineup features celebrated drag king Prince of Persia, acerbic drag artist Midgitte Bardot, fierce performance artist Lasana Shabazz, genre-smashing clown Dre Spisto, and surreal cabaret artist Charlie Wood!

This event will be captioned and will include audio descriptive elements

Presented by the Diverse Alarums research project and Marlborough Productions. Supported by Arts & Humanities Research Council, University of Roehampton, University of Sussex, and Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts

Pay What You Decide

Pay What You Decide (PWYD) tickets are available for this event. These are limited to 20 tickets per performance, with a maximum of 2 tickets available per customer. Find out more

More details about the artists and the Diverse Alarums research project:

Charlie Wood - Artist

Charlie Wood is a cross disciplinary artist working in music, cabaret, writing, costume making, visual art and more. They front the competition winning orchestral punk band THWACK and co-run the iconic misfit performance night Miss Ellaneous with Frankie Thompson. They have been a familiar (if often masked) face on the London cabaret scene for some time, winning Not Another Drag Competition Holiday Allstars, starring in and writing various plays and musicals and performing at venues including the V&A, Glastonbury Festival, The Southbank Centre, The Puppet Barge, The Windmill, Trans Pride Brighton and many more. Charlie's work includes unforgettable costumes, sharp wit, original music, tragedy, ritual, rage and joy.

Dre Spisto - Artist

Dre Spisto makes a mish mash of live theatre, art buffoonery, comedic interventions, film and live filmed performance through perspectives as a queer, neurodivergent, Venezuelan immigrant. Trained at Lispa (Art-Haus Berlin) in Lecoq and embodied practices with a focus on clown through mask. Dre’s work has been described by critics as genre-smashing, surreal, gentle and exuberant.

Dre’s solo work is based on playful autobiographical exploration through physical masks (characters) that delve into the corners of their psyche. Working with thematic vignettes, live improvisation, movement, music and film projection.

Lasana Shabazz - Artist

Lasana Shabazz is an interdisciplinary performance artist whose work delves deep into identity politics, deconstructing ideas of race, sexuality, class and gender, queering the norm of what is considered acceptable by mainstream and popular culture. Their work incorporates theatre, dance, spoken word, visual art, music production, make up, costume design and construction. They work in art galleries, theatres, arts festivals, museums, educational institutions, black, queer and QTIPOC (queer trans intersex people of colour) art spaces nationally and internationally.

Prince of Persia - Artist

Prince of Persia (they/he) is a celebrated drag king, multidisciplinary artist, speaker and Brighton based public figure known for their performance art and events. Prince is a passionate advocate for intersectional activism, showcased on stage and in the community spaces he creates. Prince is the founder of AZIZ POC Events and co-founder of Brighton King Night, both which platform and amplify marginalized voices in the queer community. Blending drag, boylesque, and cabaret, their work challenges societal norms, celebrates queer trans joy, and explores the nuances of identity. Prince’s artistry extends beyond the stage, a sought-after speaker, emcee, queer events specialist and artist, delivering workshops to the local community and reshaping narratives around diversity and inclusion. Commissioned by Marlborough Productions, Prince debuts a captivating new cabaret piece; reclaiming sexuality. Their vibrant performances continue to inspire audiences, sparking dialogue and change in every space they occupy. Follow Prince on Instagram: @atusajasmin_

Tamm Reynolds aka Midgitte Bardot - Artist

Midgitte Bardot is the alter ego of a queered queer person with dwarfism who’s existence for millenia has been roughed around enough for them to develop an appetite for violence, vulgarity and vengeance. Midgitte’s canonisation in dwarf culture and heritage is long overdue. Mines. Midgetism. Militance. Mudpies. Mercury. Magnificence. Their work can be acerbic, invoking a revolutionary zeal in the most inhibited of people, bringing new horizons of power, disgust, and the brute force of confronting our shared humanity on a dying planet. They also do drag.

Midgitte is brilliant. They have a beautiful singing voice that often brings an audience to tears while contemplating all the vivid possibilities life can bring us. Midgitte is hilarious, and can often be found leaving crowds collapsed on the floor while their guts explode from laughter. They have phenomenal timing, dragging the emotions of spectators from joy to despair on the turn of a second.

Emma Frankland - Host, Lead Artist, & Dramaturg

Emma is an award winning writer, theatre maker and performer, whose work is often playfully destructive, and gloriously irreverent. Recently, she has written several episodes for Channel 4’s iconic continuing drama Hollyoaks, which will be on screen in 2024. She currently has a full length play, TRAP, in development.

Over the past decade, Emma’s status has been established as a prominent and innovative theatre artist, whose work has been focussed on issues around gender identity and politically motivated performances. She regularly performs and leads workshops around the world, and she has created a diverse collection of work, which has been performed internationally in Indonesia, Brazil, Turtle Island and across the UK and Europe.

Emma has written five solo shows for her project None of Us is Yet a Robot, which were published by Methuen in 2019 as a collected volume.

Subira Joy - Host, Lead Artist, & Dramaturg

Subira Joy is an award winning performer, writer and activist based in Sussex. As a Black, genderqueer artist, their work weaves together the personal and political, through experiences and imaginations, spoken with rage, softness and laughter. With an eclectic performance style that moves through spoken word, performance art, dance, playwriting, drag and cabaret, Subira is interested in art as a tool for activism and social change.

Subira's show 'Kill The Cop Inside Your Head' was a 2023 Eclipse Award winner and was longlisted for the BBC Writers Popcorn award. They are the 2024 Stuart Hall Fellow at University of Sussex.

E.M. Parry - Scenography and Costume Design Consultant

E.M. Parry is a trans*-disciplinary artist and award-winning designer, working across scenography, performance, drag, and visual art. Their work has been seen in the West End, international opera houses, pubs, clubs, ships, cabarets, museums, lecture halls and haunted basements. They are an associate artist at Shakespeare’s Globe, a previous artist-in-residence at Triangle LGBTQ+ Cultural Centre, and have recently shown their work at the V&A, Prague Quadrennial and hARTs Lane Gallery where they had their first solo exhibition, Closet Dramas. They trained at Wimbledon, Motley, and recently completed a PhD exploring queer and trans history through creative practice. They work with, through and for queer bodies, squinting at history, flirting with ghosts and the things that go bump in the margins.

Diverse Alarums

Led by the early modern drama scholars Andy Kesson and Erin Julian (University of Roehampton) and the contemporary media scholar Sandra Nelson (University of Sussex), and run with Marlborough Productions, Emma Frankland and Subira Joy, Diverse Alarums is an Arts and Humanities Research Council-sponsored research project that uses the past to explore new and equitable ways of working with contemporary creative practitioners.

(image credit: Design by Sarah Ferrari, Photography by Harry Elletson, Lucy Le Brocq/Kaleidoshoots, Christa Holka, Charley Williams, Holly Revell, and Ajamu)