01/06/2013 – Scene Magazine – From the heart of LGBTQ+ Life

NYC’s bravest and bawdiest burlesque duo- The Wau Wau Sisters – returned to Brighton Fringe with their all new show of unearthly delights and debauchery. Straddling, bumping and grinding the gap between religious & related, performance art & party, busking & burlesque, profanity & divinity, they contorted and writhed to a bacchanalian finale. Their deliciously profane reinvention of The Last Supper, served up with saviours, savants and showgirls, is at the Speigletent now, go buy tickets before you read any further.

This was a delightful and charming show full of fuax crudity, clever post feminist deconstructive humour, filthy foul mouthed asides and some pretty impressive acrobatics and trapeze work too, it’s not often this critic ends up on stage dressed as a Satyr, balanced on a semi naked lady’s feet, deep throating a banana while holy wine is poured on his body and he’s kissing a strange man, but you know, all in the line of duty. It felt like i was tripping while watching Benny Hill.

These two sisters are pretty bawdy in the widest and best meaning of the word, their feisty and funny act is intentionally shambolic but also sneakily slick with some very funny asides as they clash, whirl and interact to bring us their new show, a psychedelic reinterpretation of the Last Supper. They have the energy and mania that reminds me of Stephnie Weir from the American super series MadTV and with a strong dash of utterly inspired lunacy that breathy, busty Madeline Khan brought to comedy too, they are two cool broads. It’s all slightly psychotically tremendous, but they are immensely loveable, and easy on the eye too and the energy in this show never flags for a moment.

Check out their website here:

The show builds dramatic tension well, even though the Sisters do their best to undermine their own slyly sophisticated humour with delightfully crude bickering and fooling around, and by the end of this short one hour show the audience were clapping along and cheering these two lithe and talented women as they took to the trapeze to astound us with a frantic and breathtaking duet on the traipses in their undies.

Their routine is a riot of flouncing, pouting saucy hotness but all smothered in some smooth as a piglets belly southern belle charm, they sing country and western while doing acrobatics and beseech Jesus to ‘come again, and again’. They had kindly adjusted their routine to the Brighton Audience too, which is always the mark of a good festival show, they have some fun audience participation, including the stuff I got caught up in, but it’s all in the best possible taste.

Part party, part burlesque, fully Rabelaisian and safely debauched they never quite loose control, although it seems they threaten to do so throughout the evening. The frantic and wonderfully bizarre finale just goes to show how wild and chaotic theatre is best performed by seemingly dangerous performers who are supremely and professionally in control at all time.

Saucy and thrilling contemporary vaudeville at it’s best. A treat and the very best way for me to end the festival. Thanks Wau Wau Sisters you were simply the best.

For more info or to book tickets see the festival website here:

70% of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), fear coming out in the workplace; according to a new survey conducted by the local jobs website JobsinBrightonandHove.co.uk.

12% of survey respondents say they fear not being accepted as part of the group, 9% fear persecution and bullying from colleagues, 4% fear it will affect their career prospects, 2% fear losing the respect of people they like, 1% fear being talked about negatively whilst an overwhelming 43% of respondents feared a combination of all of these things.

The survey also draws attention to the fact more than a third (34%) of respondents say they have experienced some form of discrimination at work due to their sexuality. A further 8% say they are unsure if they have experienced discrimination, suggesting the figure could potentially be even higher.

The significant percentage of LGBT people reporting discrimination in the workplace may go some way to explaining the high proportion of fear associated with coming out.

More positively, 71% of LGBT people say they now feel either quite positive or very positive about being out at work, with just 2% of people saying they feel that people may be against them because of their sexual orientation.

The survey suggests that the situation for LGBT people in the UK may be more hospitable than it is in Europe as a whole. A recent survey conducted by the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights found that 47% of people across 27 EU member states felt discriminated against or harassed in the last year.

With just 6% of UK respondents reporting bullying from colleagues, this new survey suggests that respect for LGBT people in the workplace has progressed considerably.

For full results of the survey, CLICK HERE: