Joseph Reuben is an emerging singer songwriter. He first came to attention several years ago with his take on Robyn’s ‘Call Your Girlfriend’. His career was almost derailed by an emergency surgical intervention that could have resulted in him never singing again. He turned his attention to composing scores for film, TV, theatre and ballet. But after years of gruelling vocal rehabilitation, Joseph is now able to step back into the spotlight and focus on his long overdue solo work.
As a composer, some of his career highlights include crafting an orchestral version of Tyla Yaweh’s hit ‘High Right Now’ for the film ‘GULLY’, which was directed by Nabil (The Weeknd, Billie Eilish, Kanye West); creating music for fashion campaigns featuring Daisy Lowe and Dita Von Teese; and even a special royal-approved production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ that was performed at Windsor Castle.
We caught up with him to find out more. He describes his latest single DREAMLAND a “nostalgic and emotive song about not being able to let go of a past relationship and living in my own dreamland.”
“My inspirations are all over the place. I’m a massive film composer fan. Composers like Bernard Hermann, Les Baxter, Hans Zimmer, Philip Glass to more pop artists like Lana Del Rey, Woodkid, James Blake. Artists that create in their own way. Those are the kind of artists that I am inspired by.”
At the end of 2020, Joseph launched the month-long Song A Day project. “I wrote a song everyday for one month. At the end of each week I shared a playlist with my fans of each of the songs allowing them to vote for their favourite songs that would eventually be released at the end of the project.”
Did almost losing his voice give him a renewed appreciation for music? “I appreciate the fact that I can sing every single day and don’t for a second take that for granted. It’s been a long journey to gain my confidence back and finally believe I can actually do this again. I’m at a great place and full of gratitude.”
Joseph lives quite an international life, as you’ll notice on his Instagram. Where does he consider to be home? ” I feel very much at home in both London and NYC. I was born in London so when I’m there I mostly have my head down and spend most of my time in the studio. Then I’m more sociable and feel more alive when I’m in NY. I love living between different cities. Each offers a different energy and pace of life.”
“Free Britney” is the biggest story in the entertainment world. It can be tricky to keep up with all the twists and turns of Britney Spear’s legal battle with her dad. It’s the ultimate human drama. It’s a story about freedom, family feuds and the tangled personal life of an American icon. Inevitably, it has generated endless headlines and clicks.
Boy George has swept into the fray with an irresistibly catchy new track called Free Britney. It’s a disco banger he’s made in collaboration with Karina Fernandez. The song is very topical and it’s more than just a novelty track. It’s actually good! Boy George has never shied away from current affairs. He did a song called Yes We Can when Obama was campaigning.
The #FreeBritney movement has resonated with LGBT+ people. Britney has always had a huge gay fan base. Her personal struggles reflect the challenges LGBT+ often face. Britney triumphed at Brighton Pride for a reason – her music seems to be addressed directly to the gays. Free Britney rallies look like Pride parades.
Boy George is in the process of releasing 60 songs to mark his 60th birthday. He deserves a lot of credit for making so much new material. He could stick the nostalgia circuit but he still clearly has the itch to make new artistic statements.
ABBA are one of the biggest bands ever, as you’re no doubt aware. They thought their music would fall by the wayside when they broke up, but it’s lived on in blockbuster movies, musicals and museums. They continue to earn vast sums of money from their catalogue.
They have never come close to reforming for any live engagements. It’s not as if they need the money – they always felt more comfortable as recording artists. Their career took off in Brighton, of all places, at the Eurovision Song Content in 1974: they won with their song Waterloo. The rest, as they say, was history.
In 2020 the band confirmed they had two new songs, I Still Have Faith In You and Don’t Shut Me Down. They hinted they had around five songs in total. Some of the songs were supposed to arrive in 2020 but the pandemic got in the way.
Benny Anderson said “They’re coming. They’re coming this year. I’m guessing after the summer. But I can only guess, because I’m not really sure. But I would think so. One shouldn’t promise anything but if I were to decide myself, it would be September. I can’t make that decision alone. But that’s what we’re aiming for.”
ABBA have just launched new social media profiles, including an Instagram account called ABBA Voyage. The picture they posted looks unmistakably like album artwork. It even has a release date: 02/09/21.
It’s highly likely that you’ll be dancing around to new ABBA songs next month. Cher better shelve that second ABBA tribute album because this will be the real deal.
George Richmond-Scott is currently directing a new adaptation of Small Change by Peter Gill at The Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. It’s a poetic, nostalgic story about place, the passage of time and lost loves. We caught up with George to find out more.
First of all, how did you discover Small Change? “I saw another one of Peter Gills’ plays at the Donmar Warehouse called The York Realist. It was beautiful and brilliantly directed. I was struck by how intense and engaging the characters were. It was joyful, honest and painful. It has a love story between two men – they come together and realise they can’t stay together. I was very engaged by the story and the whole vibe. I read more of Peter Gill’s work and discovered Small Change.”
“The play expresses an incredible range of feelings. It really evokes place in a strong way. It’s very poetic but it also reflects real life. It shifts between modes in a very unusual way.”
How would you characterise his writing style, the word poetic crops up a lot? “There’s a lot of humour too. There’s pain, of course – there’s pain in life. There are crises but there are also moments of release and joyfulness. There’s hope in there too. It’s not easy to let go and move on but you can do it, and not get too mired in what’s gone.”
The play was first performed in 1976. Does it stand out as an LGBT+ story of its time? “I don’t think it’s a gay play in the sense that it examines what it means to be a gay man. The main character is in love with a man who’s sort of in love with him too, even though he probably isn’t gay. It’s central to what the play is about but the other characters don’t really respond to that.”
“There’s no outing scene. It’s about somebody trying to understand the person they’ve become and how they can move their life forward. He seems trapped and lost. The fact that he was in love with the guy he grew up with and it wasn’t really reciprocated is part of that, but it’s not a gay play with a capital G. Although it’s still an important part of the play’s DNA.”
“The play is trying to capture what it means to live in the present while having your past carried along with you – and the question of how you manage that in a healthy way.”
The play captures feelings we all experience, especially as we get older. “It’s about parents and children, mothers and sons. It’s different for every relationship, but it’s often a complicated or nuanced love that exists between mothers and sons.”
Omnibus Theatre
Tell us about The Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. “The Omnibus is a really lovely local theatre. It’s run by a brilliant woman called Marie McCarthy – she’s incredibly supportive. She’s very nurturing to the people who work here. I live nearby so it’s one of my local theatres.”
“ I did a play here three years ago when I left my directing training program called Blood Wedding. I rewrote, adapted it and directed it – the arrogance, eh? She gave me the opportunity to do something off the back of my training, and I learned a lot by doing that. The play went really well. Some bits of it I’m really proud of and some bits I’d do differently. It sold well.”
“They’ve had some building work done over lockdown. The bar has been moved – it’s more front facing and welcoming. They’ve upgraded the rehearsal rooms. We’re now rehearsing in the room that used to be the bar – it’s a great space to rehearse. They do great music events here too. They do community events also.”
“There are two theatre spaces. The main theatre sits about 90 or 100. We’ll have about 80 for this production. We’re figuring out if we need to have any spaces due to COVID restrictions. It’s been really hard. This show was set to go into production just before lockdown. We were gearing up to start and we had to postpone it.”
“The play has been postponed several times. It’s been challenging and this show has been waiting a long time to happen. I hope it hasn’t been stagnating in my head. It’s hope it’s done that Christmas cake thing of soaking and becoming richer – we’ll see, I think it has.”
COVID has been very tricky for the theatre industry, how have you coped? “Some people have left the industry and that’s a terrible shame. Others have carried on and really struggled. I was lucky – I managed to get a job in a drama school. Initially I was out of work – I was working on Jamie in the West End and that just stopped. I was doing nothing for a bit in late spring, and then got lucky and secured the teaching job. I’m still doing some stuff there now.”
“People who work in theatre tend to be very resourceful and creative. But people are finding that they’re human and there’s only so much you can take. You can’t endlessly be resourceful with nothing. You need to feel supported in some way, as well as ducking and diving.”
So, for someone who hasn’t heard of Peter Gill or Small Change, why should they come and see the show? “I would say it’s a beautiful, vivid evocation of life and love. It’s about how parents and children overcome difficulties together. You can search for a moment in your past that defines you, but in the end you have to take responsibility for yourself in the present to live a full and rewarding life. You’ll leave thinking about life and love and how you treat yourself and other people.”
Barbra Streisand is one of the greatest singers on the planet. Her Brooklyn contemporary Joan Molinsky – better known as Joan Rivers – became one of the greatest comedians on the planet. In terms of their personalities, they couldn’t have been more different. On the other hand, they shared striking similarities. They were two hugely ambitious Jewish girls determined to make it in a man’s world. They both succeeded in making it to the very apex of their professions and stubbornly stayed there. Their paths did cross in a much disputed theatrical collaboration before they were famous.
“When Barbra Streisand was nineteen she was no superstar. She was sleeping on her mother’s couch. Her step father was making nose jokes. She was working in a Chinese restaurant. In an attempt to get out of Brooklyn she has a dream: to act.”
“Thus she finds herself in an off-off-off Broadway production. The play is lousy. The theatre is a shabby upstairs room. The woman playing her lesbian stalker? A recently divorced twenty four year old Joan Rivers. Joan is living with her parents. She wants to break out of her dull middle class life. Before she dreamed of being a comedian? She was going to be an actress. Thus she shares a shabby stage in a shabby theatre with the young, insecure Streisand.”
Joan Rivers
This legendary encounter was told by Joan River’s in her memoir Enter Talking. The story sounded too good to be true, and it was. River’s said a lot of things for comic effect – she never let the truth or political correctness get in the way of a good joke. She told to story so many times it developed its own mythic truth.
River’s joked that when she bumped into Streisand at parties she would be unceremoniously ignored. Streisand never commented on her allegations and may never even have been aware of them. (When Streisand had a problem with her iPhone she called Steve Jobs and asked him to fix it – she lives in her own world).
Playwright Roy Smiles has brought the two divas together on stage to tell his own version of the story. It’s called The Funny Girls (what else would it be called?). Finding two actresses up to the task of playing these grand divas can’t have been easy. Mia Tomlinson will play Joan and Rosanna Harris will play Babs. They have both nailed the looks, that’s for sure!
“Both believe they are the most talented Jewish woman on the planet. One of them is wrong….”
Find out how Roy Smiles untangles the mystery in this brand new show. This really is as camp as it gets.
Titania McGrath is a fiercely opinionated social justice warrior on Twitter (with 649.1K followers). She declares herself to be many things: “Activist. Healer. Radical intersectionalist poet. Nonwhite. Ecosexual.”
There is a twist, however: Titania McGrath isn’t real. She is the monstrous creation of Andrew Doyle, a writer and comedian who hosts Free Speech Nation on GB News. We caught up with him to discuss Titania and her upcoming appearance in Brighton.
How do you think the woke movement differs from the social justice movements of the past?
The key difference is that social justice movements throughout history have been progressive, whereas the woke movement is regressive. It simply borrows the language of progressivism in order to promote its illiberal and divisive ideas. In this sense it is unprecedented.
The luminaries of the great civil rights movements of the twentieth century understood that free speech underpinned all other freedoms, and sought to achieve equality for all irrespective of race, gender or sexuality. The woke movement, on the other hand, seeks to undo these achievements and sees people first and foremost according to their racial or sexual demographics. In this, they have a lot in common with the far right. They are two heads of the same beast.
Does the woke movement have an origin story?
Yes, it originates from the various offshoots of postmodernism that grew out of the French poststructuralists of the 1960s. This is why social justice activists often talk of ‘power structures’ in society, or the way in which language ‘normalises’ certain modes of behaviour or thought. They believe that controlling the way people speak is important because they see language as the way in which our understanding of reality is constructed. These are all beliefs that are derived from postmodernism in one way or another.
Give us your favourite recent example of woke excess.
I wouldn’t say I had a ‘favourite’ example. That would be like having a favourite poison. I find the examples of woke excess to be at once funny and deeply sinister. Every morning I go through the day’s news stories and keep a tally on what’s going on, and there are normally four or five relevant stories per day. A year ago it wasn’t this frequent, so things are definitely ratcheting up.
This week alone we’ve had a university in America remove a boulder from its campus because it decided it had racist connotations, an award-winning author agree to rewrite her book because activists were offended, a law school claim that it is racist to expect its graduates to be able to read or write or have basic mathematical capabilities, the Scottish government issue guidelines that claims four-year-olds should be able to change gender without schools informing their parents, the BBC changing the definition of “homosexual” in accordance with gender identity ideology, an author claiming that fonts perpetuate masculine and feminine stereotypes, and Robin (Batman’s sidekick) coming out as queer. As if anyone thought he was straight anyway…
Do you think woke bashing can detract from more serious issues?
Of course. The whole culture war is a distraction from actual problems. I yearn for the day when all of this nonsense is over. The trouble is, if the culture warriors get their way we won’t be able to effectively address serious issues such as economic inequality, genuine injustice, or problems in our education system.
The woke movement is essentially bourgeois and seeks to impose a quasi-religious belief system on society, one that is impervious to reason or discussion. It promotes racist and segregationist ideas under the guise of ‘anti-racism’. It opposes free speech because of its reactionary view that the masses are liable to be corrupted if popular culture conveys the ‘wrong’ message.
Those of us who believe in liberal values, who oppose racism and prejudice in all its forms, and who want to see a society in which everyone is treated equally need to take a stand against wokeness. If the woke movement wins out, that will be the death of social liberalism. So however silly a lot of it seems, there’s a lot at stake.
Do you see the culture war as being a winnable war (by either side)?
We have to hope so. The culture war isn’t about left versus right. It’s about liberty versus authority. History teaches us what happens when the authoritarians win, and it isn’t pretty.
We’ve all seen Titania McGrath on Twitter. What can we expect from her on stage?
She’s a monster, obviously. So you can expect to be hectored remorselessly for the entire show about your privilege and how we’ll never achieve true diversity until everyone agrees with her.
Some would say Brighton is quite a woke place. Do you think Titania will be at home here?
Brighton is certainly the home to some of the most extreme woke activists, including a local council that is seeking to implement Critical Race Theory in schools and is probably breaking the law by doing so. At the same time, there are plenty of liberals in Brighton who understand all too well how regressive the woke movement is, including some gay activists of yesteryear who are coming out of retirement to fight it. It makes sense that Titania would perform here, to give succour to her allies and venom to her foes. Also, she’s got a holiday home in Hove, so it’s convenient for her.
Titania will be performing live at The Komedia before a West End run in October.
Benjamin Sebastian is a bold performance artist and curator. Celebrate 10 years of ]performance s p a c e [ (no typos, that’s how it’s spelt!) as their PSX culminates with a 10-hour, durational performance event featuring new commissions by 9 influential performance artists. We caught up with Benjamin to find out more about their work.
1. What inspired you to create ]performance s p a c e [?
B.S: ]ps[ was prefigured in a way by a monthly performance art event called ArtEvict (initiated by the artist Kiki Taira), which took place once a month in squatted buildings across London. ArtEvict came about through the energy of the Occupy Movement. We were a bunch of young people who felt we didn’t have space or the resources we required to do want were interested in (performance art) – and we were certainly not being invited into arts organisations or establishments of the time – so we got together and created our own networks and spaces, supporting each other in the process.
I collaborated on ArtEvict with Kiki and had heard of an artist named Bean who had moved through the platform. At that same moment in time, I had answered a called for a studio share in Bow, East London. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was Bean who had placed the advert. We ended up sharing a studio and after a very brief moment in Bow (upon Bean’s initiative) we began looking for a warehouse space where we could set up our own studio for ourselves and other artists engaged in similar (time-based/performance art) processes of making. We ended up in a large warehouse in pre-Olympic Hackney Wick.
So I would say that Kiki Taira, ArtEvict, Bean and our extended network of makers/thinkers/feelers inspired the creation of ]performance s p a c e[, not me.
Poppy Jackson with Benjamin Sebastian by Marco Beradi performing Penetrating Gender2. It’s the UK’s only studio and exhibition space dedicated to performance art. Do you think performance art is shunned by the art world?
B.S: We are the UK’s only studio and exhibition space dedicated solely to performance art, but I don’t feel this equates to the medium being shunned, not at all. ]performance s p a c e [ is regularly funded by Arts Council England for example. I do think performance art is the enfant terrible of the art ‘world’ but I think the medium often occupies a position of scene darling within that world also.
Most reputable performance artists have some trace or documentation of their work housed in major and/or minor permanent art collections the world over. I think it is important to look closely – critically – at what is being consumed and archived by the elite art establishment, what isn’t and why. Performance art can, if so desired by the maker, resist many capitalist market forces by refusing to supply readily consumable products for said market, instead often opting for meandering processes and experiments as the artistic form. Even the traces and documentation of performance art works that end up held in collections and become fodder for market exchange, are only ephemera. They are not the live event, they are not the actual artwork. They only allude to it. I feel such distinctions make performance art a much more tricky subject (more so than a painting, sculpture or print for example), for the art world (read market) to capture and commodify.
Nicholas Tee by Manuel Vason3. What can we expect from the upcoming 10-hour durational performance?
B.S: OMG everything – Womxn, POC and Enby to the front. Rubiane Maia repetitively casting their feet, responding to diasporas of black and brown peoples throughout history – Martin O’Brien crawling with a coffin on their back, considering their position as a queer person living with cystic fibrosis in the context of a global pandemic – as well as ritual acts of mythopoesis from Joseph Morgan Schofield (]performance s p a c e [ assistant director), exploring the here, now and otherly potentials of queer futurity.
The 10 hour event will see masters of performance art share space with/perform alongside other artists just setting out on their artistic journeys. 9 artists making work together in shared space, continuously, across a 10-hour duration. It’s going to be remarkable, come along!
4. Your artwork encompasses “chaos magic, eroticism, tattoo, ritual and gender fuckery.” Is it safe to say you operate outside the mainstream?
B.S: No not at all! I think it would be untruthful for any of us to pretend that there is not a proliferation of body adornment, sex, esoteric & ritual practice as well as multifarious displays of gender diversity within our day to day lives. I mean, the majority of us know multiple people with tattoos, right? The reality of genders other than male or female (non-binary) are represented within pop culture, right? And I mean, sex is just everywhere. I would suggest all the elements of my work are very much mainstream now but perhaps, sometimes still penalised under lingering, conservative, power structures such as State, Church, Family and other institutionalised habits like misogyny and slut shaming.
5. How did lockdown affect your approach to art?
B.S: I paused. I had no desire to push myself and my work online. I did one online performance during all of our lockdowns here in the UK and it was the most alienating and dissatisfying experience of my entire career. However, that one online performance gave me more clarity regarding my live practice than any other performance art work I have made, because it enabled me to experience – in such an explicit context – how important the relationship of a live audience (in the same physical space) is to me and my work. The reciprocal exchange of energy that is enacted in those moments is just so powerful and potentially transformative. For that I am very thankful.
Lockdown and the (small) pause that I was personally afforded (many where not) also enabled me to recoup creatively. I found more time to read, to look, to listen. Think and feel. This is still affecting me now, as things re-open and we are all back to making. Back to work. I am trying to hold onto that experience of pause, reminding myself to slow down and do more looking, listening, thinking and feeling – because that’s where all the good stuff comes from.
6. Tell us about your latest photographic exhibition in London.
B.S: It’s going to be great! I am so proud of this exhibition. It is a synthesis of my solo art practice, my directorship at ]performance s p a c e [ and my new project (with Joseph Morgan Schofield); VSSL Studio. I will be exhibiting a single piece of photographic documentation (by Marco Beradi) from a performance art work (Phoenix) I created in 2013 at ]performance s p a c e [‘s original building in Hackney Wick, East London.
That piece will be exhibited alongside 9 other pieces of photographic documentation (spanning the last 10 years ]ps[) from an illustrious line up of artists including Ron Athey, Poppy Jackson, Nina Arsenault, Bean (co-founder of ]performance s p a c e [), hancock & kelly, Jade Montserrat, Nickolas Tee, Keijaun Thomas, Elizabeth Short (performing as Nick Kilby) & Kris Canavan. The exhibition will take place at VSSL Studio in Deptford, which I co-founded with Joseph Morgan Schofield this time last year. The PV is on Thursday the 12th of August, with live performances from Kelvin Atmadibrata and Adriana Disman – the exhibition runs through until the 19th. The images are all truly gorgeous, please come and take a look.
Runs from 12-21 August at Ugly Duck, 49 Tanner St, Bermondsey, London SE1 3PL. 11am – 9pm. Find out more here.
Lady Gaga dropped Chromatica in 2020 right on the cusp of the pandemic. America then went into meltdown after the killing of George Floyd and the mad conclusion of the Trump presidency. The high camp retro pop of Chromatica didn’t quite fit in with the social unrest of the time.
The album summoned us to dance floors that were closed and pride parties that were cancelled. Nonetheless, Lady Gaga was called upon to heal the wounds musically, belting out the national anthem at Biden’s inauguration like the megastar that she is.
When G-A-Y finally reopened in London, the first song they played was Rain On Me. No other pop artist has made music that connects so directly with LGBT+ audiences since Madonna in her heyday. Boy George said that Madonna is a gay man in a woman’s body. The same could be said of Gaga.
When Gaga should have been unleashing her Chromatica Ball on the world, she was isolating in her mansion and promoting a range of Chromatica Oreo cookies. She managed to do one live performance from Chromatica at the MTV Awards with Ariana Grande. That aside, Gaga stans were disappointed that the Chromatica era had to be cancelled. It had the potential to be her best era yet, especially as straight people didn’t quite get it.
Chromatica is set to have a second outing, however. The remix album has become very popular and makes perfect sense in the age of streaming. Dua Lipa’s Club Future Nostalgia being a prime example. Chromatica is currently getting its own remix treatment. You’re highly likely to be dancing to the original Chromatica tracks and the remix version for many years to come in the gay clubs of the world.
When is Lady Gaga’s Chromatica remix album coming out?
We don’t know yet but the producer BloodPop has confirmed that it is happening. When asked to spill some tea about it on Twitter, he said “It’s Insanely good hopefully soon.” Dorian Electra is confirmed as a collaborator. Rina Sawayama and Charli XCX are strongly rumoured to be involved.
Bree Runway also confirmed her involvement by Tweeting “yup yup it’s breeee runway on lady Gaga’s chromatica remix album PUTRRRRRRRRRR DNJDJDJDDJ”. So make of that what you will!
With Rina Sawayama and Charli XCX’s involvement, the album is likely to have a Hyperpop twist. Let’s hope the Chromatica remix album helps to usher in a proper Chromatica era.
But most all, as we were going to press Gaga herself Tweeted this:
In the meantime, Gaga has been quite busy, releasing a Pride edition of the Born This Way album, starring in the House Of Gucci, and making a new album of standards with Tony Bennett. Gaga wears many hats – literally and metaphorically – but the Gaga the the gays love most will always be the one who fills the dance floors.
Formed in 2019, Bitten Peach is “the UK’s only Pan-Asian cabaret collective.” They made quite an impact on the cabaret scene before the pandemic. Now we’re – hopefully! – post-lockdown, Bitten Peach are heading back on the road. You can catch them at Brighton Pride in August at the Ironworks.
The phrase “Bitten Peach” has major homosexual resonance in China. The largely mythical figure of Mizi Xia lived – or was invented – in the Zhou dynasty era. He gave a half eaten peach to Duke Ling, who basically fancied him. Think about that scene in Call Me By Your Name – plus ça change. There are also queer Chinese references to the “passion of the cut sleeve” but we won’t go there!
To find out more, we caught up with Lilly SnatchDragon, a co-founder of Bitten Peach and “Neo Drag Queen Burlesque Performer.” First of all, what inspired her to start Bitten Peach?
Lilly noticed some unfortunate stereotyping at Lunar New Year (sometimes conflated with Chinese New Year), such as non-Asian people wearing bathrobes as kimonos. “There’s no reason for white people to dress in bathrobes celebrating a New Year they don’t even understand.” Lilly was also getting tired of being the only Asian performer on the bill at cabaret events.
She formed Bitten Peach with fellow performers on the cabaret scene. They sold out as soon as they announced their first shows. Was that because of the individual performers or the nature of the group? “I think it was the collective aspect – no one had really seen an all-Asian group. ShayShay has a good following, I have a good following and Evelyn was upcoming. I think it was mostly because people had never seen anything like it.”
Their audiences are very diverse. For The Glory show the venue was so packed they had to turn people away. “The Glory is amazing. John Sizzle and the rest of the team are so supportive. They even gave us the money to do the decorations for the show.”
What can we expect from a Bitten Peach show? “Expect a variety show. We have a mixture of different skills. People come to see us because we’re a collective, we’re a family. People are made to feel welcome. Especially after being othered so much. And you’re going to have camp, you’re going to have comedy,” she pauses. “It’s early and I’ve only had half my coffee! You can expect some subliminal education too. We always bring to life Asian hate and the stereotypes a lot of us face. It’s about celebrating the skin we are in. It’s about being unapologetically who we are. We’re here to celebrate who we are and everyone is welcome. You can expect a lot of love.”
During the pandemic, they stayed in contact over a Whatsapp group. A space where they could vent, connect and share. Shared cultural references are also important. “I can discuss rice cookers and everyone knows what we’re talking about.” They also filmed BBC Ident during lockdown about a cabaret cooking family. “I describe Bitten Peach as the family I didn’t even know I needed.”
What can we expect for the Brighton Pride show? “I’m not actually in the Brighton Pride show. I know the cast though and you can definitely expect lots of camp and a lot of Asian twists. You’ll see a lot – it’s going to be a variety show.”
“We have a lot of shows coming up. We’ll be performing at the Garrick Theatre on 5 August. Come and have a look at who we are. Attend and support as many POC shows as you can. The Cocoa Butter Club I have to give a massive shout out to as well. It’s run by a performer called Sadie Sinner. Without The Cocoa Butter Club, cabaret wouldn’t be what it is today. Without Sadie there wouldn’t be so much diversity in cabaret. I’ve done loads of shows with them, including their opening night where they had to turn people away.” The Cocoa Butter Club is based in London. Be sure to follow them and check out their pioneering work.
Lily SnatchDragon is considered to be on the of the UK’s best burlesque performers. She’ll be performing at the Garrick Theatre show. “I’ll be on stage with Fancy Chance, who is absolutely epic. Look her up. If the world ended, the only living things would be cockroaches and Fancy Chance. We also have Aisha H – she does martial arts. She performs with whips and does dagger throwings! We also have Mahatma Khandi who’s part of Bitten Peach. We also have Raheem – known as Doza Cat. The latter is trained in classical Indian dance which they interpret through their drag. We’ve got ShayShay, we’ve got Evelyn. We’ve got drag kings, we’ve got circus, we’ve got burlesque. I like to put on shows that have a lot of variety.
Cody Frost’s new single ‘STOMACHACHES’ is out now alongside her debut EP ‘It’s Not Real’. She’s already made a big impact online and now MTV and Radio 1 are taking notice. Fans of Billie Billie Eilish’s moody, electro, Gen Z musings will appreciate Cody Frost.
In addition to the title track and ‘HIGH/BYE’, Cody’s debut EP ‘It’s Not Real’ is completed by ‘verbal warnings’ and ‘(I should) take better care’. In the course of just four songs, Cody proves her immense versatility by delivering electro-punk punch, unforgettable alt-pop hooks and sensitive balladeering. The eclectic sonics are unified by two things: Cody’s unguarded approach to vulnerable experiences, and a superlative vocal.
“I’ve been afraid for what feels like my whole life,” Cody explains. “When writing this EP, I wanted to dig into myself and say out loud things that I could never articulate before. I’ve been learning about my ADHD, depression and anxiety and wanted to tell people the things that I kept locked up, purely because I couldn’t find the words before. This EP is about losing that childlike trust that you have in adults, and essentially coming to grips with being one myself.”
Her music is distinctive and yet it fits right in with the current pop landscape. She could well be tipped for major success so check out her work now before everyone does.
Each track she’s released has widened her appeal. Her imminent breakthrough is further fuelled by extensive radio support, spanning Radio 1 (Jack Saunders, Mollie King, Gemma Bradley), BBC Introducing and Amazing Radio. Her streaming profile is just as strong, with an ascendent status on all key platforms. Highlights include hitting the cover of Misfits 2.0 and an add to Sad Songs at Spotify, while her three singles to date have featured on a remarkable total of 163 international Breaking Pop playlists at Apple Music.
Her musical journey began as a busker in Manchester and sharing covers of songs from Frank Ocean, Nirvana and Slipknot on YouTube. Her career didn’t begin to take shape until she was diagnosed with ADHD, which meant she could finally manage the condition and find a new focus. A steady succession of high profile fans have since emerged, most notably her favourite band growing up, Enter Shikari, plus Tyler Oakley, Sonique, Young Guns and Shamir.
The new single ‘STOMACHACHES’, alongside her debut EP ‘It’s Not Real’. Listen to the EP HERE. Listen to the EP HERE.
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