FEATURE: Spotlight On Siân Docksey

When I chatted to Sian Docksey , she was at her home base in Brussels , preparing for a charity show with a difference which lands via Zoom on 17 December. A former striptease artist she is a passionate activist and fund-raiser for SWARM and National Ugly Mugs which aim to support sex workers  who have suffered hardship or  been subjected to abuse.

Sian is typically outspoken and when I asked her how lockdown had been for her she replied: “Honestly it’s has been a hot steaming turd.  I lost a lot of confidence with performing and writing because I just wasn’t doing so much of it. Coronavirus made life very wobbly and uncertain, but the virtual shows I’ve done I’ve loved. Catherine Bohart’s ahow Gigless in particular is brilliant and loads of fun. “

I wondered where her comedy started. She says people from  her schooldays would be surprised she does comedy – “ because I was always very serious. I always wanted to be a writer and I got into stand-up at uni, mostly by accident . I met my best pal Zoe Tomalin who’s a comedy genius and we started writing sketch shows together. And I found the alt-comedy scene which is (usually) where I’m happiest.  I’ve been meandering around doing some combination of stand-up, scriptwriting and needlessly complicated surrealist shows .”

Asked about her coming out experience she tells me : “ Not sure I ever did, or maybe it’s just I do it all the time. I was vaguely aware of being bi from puberty and I had out gay/bi friends at school . But I guess wasn’t  visibly queer or in a queer relationship until my late teens/early 20’s . And now I basically walk around with a rainbow flag glued to my face. “

“Regrettably and against all better judgement I’m still attracted to men- so “lesbian” would be lying. I use bisexual or gay interchangeably and I guess I could use  ‘pansexual’  but the thought of it made  me feel tired. My  favourite word is ‘queer’ , she says.”

“Comedy  can be used to talk about anything but I’ve found that some things I want to talk about don’t really belong to comedy. I think the fundamental role of comedy is to cheer people up and have  a great night out,” she tells me.

On the controversial subject of whether strippers are sex workers,  Sian says opinion is divided. “ Not all strippers consider themselves sex workers, and vice versa . Stripping has  a whole set of privileges that don’t apply to other forms of sex work, so not all escorts or  street sex workers would allow me to  use the term. I respect that other people disagree .

“I worked as a stripper for 3 years in 3 different clubs , usually alongside other work. I mostly found it frustrating and truthfully not a very effective way to make money. The main thing is that stripping made me an even more radical feminist than I was before. I think that for 100 years men should relinquish every decision-making position and give all their highly-paid work to a woman – men should do all the childcare and domestic labour and care work for free, and we’ll all just see how it goes .

I have lot of absurd, juvenile utopian views like that one that I recently failed to compile into some kind of show.”

On the plight of sex workers right now she points to an ONS survey which recently showed that 88 pc of sex workers are women, mostly mothers working to support a family. “  LGBTQ+ people are disproportionately represented in sex work because as a  community we are disproportionately vulnerable to homelessness, unemployment, mental health disorders and substance abuse – numerous factors that contribute to people resorting to sex work,” she says.

She’s one of a group of young LGBTQ+ performers I’m featuring in Gscene, and she shares a common experience with many of them – appearing in the streaming series The Grass Is Always Grindr . “ The writer Pat Cash is brilliant, and it’s an amazing series of alt love and drugs on the gay scene – specifically about sexual intimacy and the horrible anxiety around it. I was really chuffed to act in it . My character is a porn actor/amateur psychotherapist/over-enthusiastic social media queen.”

Asked what advice she’d now give to a teenage Sian she said: “ Enjoy it ! I worked very hard as a teenager and took  myself very seriously – I probably could have done with loosening up a bit more. Although if I was a teen now I’d probably be learning harpooning or something to survive the imminent  climate apocalypse . So maybe not. “

On 17 December Sian is hosting an incredible online bill of stand-up, pole dancing and drag to raise emergency funds for sex workers in crisis via the SWARM hardship fund .” They’ve been doing amazing work supporting vulnerable people throughout the pandemic , along with National Ugly Mugs who work tirelessly to end violence against sex workers “

Next year Sian will have a show at the Museum of Comedy in April : “ it will be really daft and surreal . When there’s a respite from the worst of this pandemic I think there should be  an International Week Of Oh God What Just Happened ? – a holiday for everyone to pick ourselves up, bleary-eyed, from this horror show and then decide what to do next “

I’m sure Sian will have plenty of ideas.

Sian’s show is on Zoom on 17 December – see details or book your tickets now at eventbrite