After 25 years as Lola Lasagne, Stephen Richards talks to Craig Hanlon-Smith about his life as the Brighton Belle.
2014 marks 25 years of Stephen Richards’ stepping out on the cabaret circuit as Lola Lasagne. In September Lola returned to the venue where it all began, The Vauxhall Tavern, for an anniversary marking performance.
I began by asking Stephen to share his memories of that first gig 25 years ago…
“June 7 marks the actual date that I was first paid to perform as Lola. I had been originally booked to play The Two Brewers some nights later but when an act dropped out The Vauxhall (Tavern) asked me to step in. It was a fitting beginning really as when I was at school we used to walk past The Vauxhall on our way to the playing fields. Other kids used to say to me ‘You’ll be going in there Richards when you’re old enough’. They were half right, and I certainly spent more time in The Vauxhall than I did in The Oval Cricket Ground!” (laughs)
Can you remember how those first gigs felt?
“I was shit scared. These venues were legendary entertainment venues. I’d seen Adrella, Lily Savage, Dave Lynn and The Trollettes perform and I knew that most artists also hung out there on their nights off so to walk out on stage and see Paul O’Grady, Pink Gin, Sandra Hush, Ebony and The Misdemeanours, all incognito at the bar was daunting. I still feel that when other acts are in today. No-one enjoys a bad gig and the last thing you need is for another act to tell everyone they saw you die on your arse (roars with laughter), that’s why I’m really honest about my gigs, if I have a blast I’ll tell my friends, if it’s a stinker I’ll tell them that too. I’d rather it came from me!”
How did those gigs come about? Were you just chancing your arm?
“I’d been ‘doing’ drag for more than two years before that. I used to work behind the bar at The Brewers and I remember dragging up for Halloween, my mum’s name was Rosemary so I guess I went as Rosemary’s baby! I also fell into an unofficial residency at The Royal Oak in Hammersmith. Dolly DJ in his blouson and high legged tight shorts regularly used to throw show tunes into his Sunday night set, I used to sing along and one night he asked me to attend the amateur drag night the following Tuesday. I did. I was the only contestant (laughs) and remained so every Tuesday for the next two years! The gigs came on the back of that but in those days I was a lip-synching artist, the live work came soon after.”
What do you think are the changes both on the gay and drag scene in the last 25 years?
“The scene has changed because the world has changed and for all of us the audience demographic is quite different. It used to be that your audience came out for a show and were there to listen and be respectful of whoever was on stage – that’s not always the case now. The audiences are much younger and you have to be on top of your topical game and tell stories and jokes that compete with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Television is different – you could tell a gag related to the TV schedule as there were only four channels, now there are 404 and it’s tough to keep on top of what might be trending that week. The venues are different too. Improved equality means that there is a large straight contingent in the crowd these days, a much wider gender mix and whilst I welcome everyone into an audience, sometimes bars identify as gay, but really they are straight bars that are gay friendly. It requires a different approach. That said I refuse to dumb down the act and throw in the current song by Little Mix and the like.”
Why not?
“Because I don’t want to!” (laughs)
What constitutes a ‘good’ gig?
“I just enjoy putting on a show. Knowing where to place a particular song, gag, story and knowing when you get out there whether it’s an audience that will respond to more chat, less gags or more songs. I’ve never been interested in knowing beforehand how busy a venue is – even when I’ve worked on straight plays and panto. Some performers when they arrive at the stage door, the first thing they ask is ‘is it a full house?’ For me, every audience large or small deserves the same approach. I’ve played well- established cabaret venues and stepped on stage to a crowd of eleven and stormed it – we’ve had a great show together for an hour and twenty minutes. On other occasions in the same venue, it can be packed to the rafters; the crowd are not in the mood so you do your forty minutes and then off. You have to judge it.”
What has changed for Lola in 25 years?
“In the past few years I’ve performed as Stephen in a role outside Lola. I was approached to do stand-up at comedy camp as Stephen, which I loved, for the past two years I’ve been an Ugly Sister in panto and I am playing Widow Twankey in Aladdin in Worthing this Christmas. I adored The Boys in the Band (The Theatre Royal) and Diamond (Dome Studio) and really have Dave Lynn to thank for those two opportunities. Dave was asked if he knew nine actors that could then do drag and said ‘I can do better than that, I know nine drag queens that can act’ and I loved those shows, especially as I’ve had no formal training as some will happily tell you who’ve watched me perform for 25 years.” (laughs – he laughs a lot)
(I take a deep breath and pull down my visor for the next question). You have a reputation for a no nonsense approach both to your act as Lola and also to issues which affect us all, which in turn may be described as honest, brazen, and perhaps confrontational. Why don’t you just mind your Ps & Qs and get on with it? “Whether I’m working in a theatre, an established cabaret venue or a ramshackle apology of a pub standing on an orange crate, IT IS A SHOW; heckle me and you die – if I wanted a double act I’d be in one. Don’t walk across the stage mid-performance as though we’re not there; don’t talk louder than the backing track; it’s not a competition; and I’m sorry, is my performance interfering with your consumption of Jaegar Bombs? No, just no. I was brought up going to the theatre and cinema where you sit, watch and respect the artist, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
And as for issues that matter?
“I couldn’t not use my time on stage to promote and support them. If you’re performing at a charity gig you should at least know what the charity is and who we are collecting for, it’s about so much more than just throwing cash in a bucket. We live in an appalling world at times and whilst there is dark humour to be found in everything and some gags can be close to the mark, hopefully I know enough about my craft to hit the right tone and differentiate between when I’m entertaining and when I’m making a serious point.
“Take our recent Pride shows; Pride is such an important event where irrespective of gender, identity, race, age we are coming together to say ‘we are equal in the world as human beings’, it’s not about shouting ‘I’m gay and I’m proud’ it’s about being a fellow human. I genuinely am upset by inequality, I just do not understand it. When the cabaret tent closed at the end of Pride this year, a young woman came up to me and said ‘you’re one of the few acts who speaks about what Pride is about’ and I was thrilled to get that feedback.
“My career started in the middle of the AIDS pandemic in 1989 and I am lucky to be alive unlike so many others that I knew. When I was 18 just to have sex with another man was illegal, Section 28 was in full swing and as a community we were persecuted, but in those days we truly looked out for each other.
“All the venues I played in my early gigs were constantly raising money for St Thomas’ and St Mary’s hospitals, London Lighthouse and The Globe Centre. Adrella, Savage, Maisie & Jimmy, Regina were all great advocates for raising funds to help those with AIDS and HIV and my career started in the midst of all that.
“I remember when it was discovered that most of the money raised was being spent on (albeit essential) admin. It was the drag artists who made a point of saying ‘this money is not for paper, it’s for people’. We started asking the hospitals and support centres to name equipment that would help improve people’s lives or just their last few days. It may have been a defibrillator but sometimes a colour TV for the day room, and so we then raised money to buy those specific life enhancing things for people. Always about the people. So when I stand on stage and at the end of my show and ask the audience that whatever they might do please do it safely, I mean it.”
What have been your career highlights from the last 25 years? “There have been highs and lows, (laughs) but what I’m most proud of is building the Pride Cabaret stage into what it now is at Brighton Pride. People come to the Cabaret Tent and stay there all day, rain or shine we are packed, IT IS OUR MAIN STAGE and everyone in that tent is listening to every word, every note and watching every theatrical wink. Cabaret is an important part of our lives and I am proud of making that event exactly what it should be.
“Growing up when I did, starting my career when I did and working with all those great cabaret performers on that scene and in those venues. Of course I’m proud of lasting this long but I’m proud of having been able to start then, and like that. I used to work with a woman in Selfridges and who was quite a bit older than me and she was always saying that her husband fought in the war for me and that I wasn’t grateful. At the time I was young and quite dismissive of her but now I understand. I look out at some audiences and I’m proud to have fought in our war. If it wasn’t for people my age and older and all those other acts I’ve mentioned, younger gay people wouldn’t have this freedom and the opportunities they now enjoy. We helped people to overcome their fears and to be themselves.”
Stephen Richards appears as Widow Twankey in Aladdin at The Connaught Theatre, Worthing, until January 4 2015.