Penny Arcade at Soho Theatre

Penny Arcade says 'protect your authenticity' and I take that to heart. Penny has brought her Edinburgh Fringe show, 'Longing Lasts Longer', to London but has cut it down to only 60 minutes since that seems to be the rather odd policy of the Soho Theatre. To make up for that she came out 10 minutes early to start chatting and introducing the show as people were seated. I breathed a sigh of relief when she said that people didn't need to worry about sitting near the front since she didn't pick on people - she said she doesn't need to since she already has material and the show was written before we came in. Such a sensible lady! I saw Penny four years ago when she did her 'Bitch! Dyke!' show at the Arcola Tent in Dalston so it was nice to get re-acquainted with her.

I've said 'show' a few times already but is it really a show? or is it performance? is it dictat? is it social commentary? is it stand-up? It's probably all of these things and more, written by a clever woman with original thoughts in her head that she wants to share and poke fun where you least expect it.

She started off with damning the gentrification of New York and, by extension, London. That struck a chord since I'd been to the site of the Malaysian restaurant Melati on Great Windmill Street for dinner earlier in the evening to find it had closed and was replaced by some trendy-looking restaurant/bar. The originality is being sucked out of cities to homogenise them, the weirdness and danger is being tamed by money and that's certainly happened to Soho over the last decade with music venues and sex shops being replaced by coffee bars, offices and barbers.

One of the attractions of Penny's thoughts is that she's lived through interesting times from the late 60s onwards and been part of the underground for much of that time so she has a different take on social change. She has anecdotes for every circumstance and she is funny when she wants and a killer when needed. She hones in on PR and advertising and slays it by explaining it's background and what it aims to achieve. She gets young people in her sights because of the impacts of society on them that mean they live in a different world from older people, starting off life with enormous debts for student loans rather than just having fun. She kills the idea that she's nostalgic for the past by saying she was raped in the 60s, the 70s was a trashy decade, the 80s saw lots of friends die of AIDS - what's there to be nostalgic about?

Above all, it's important to be yourself, be the you that your secret heart knows you are. That's the difference between crowds and packs - people in crowds want to blend in and be the same, people in packs want to shout out their own wild ideas and develop them. Penny is definitely a leader of the pack.

At the age of 66 (as she remained us several times) there's a lot of life left in her fighting to get out and I'm pleased she shared some of herself with us tonight. I will certainly do all I can to protect my own authenticity. Thank you for the ride Penny!

PS: Penny no longer has the red hair in the pictures, it's more of a platinum blonde with purple highlights. Tasteful as ever.  

Our Lady J's 'Gospel of Dolly' at Soho Theatre

Our Lady J has been back to these shores to play her 'The Gospel of Dolly' show for three nights at the Soho Theatre. These were her first shows in London since playing 'Gospel for the Godless' (also at Soho Theatre) four years ago.

Dolly is, of course, Dolly Parton, a hero of J's and someone who helped fund her boobs. In the show we're told how Dolly got in touch one day wanting to meet, talk about the show and give her blessing, which was nice. Dolly also suggested she includes 'The Seeker' in the show which J duly obliges.

On came the Train To Kill choir for the night, clustering around one side of the baby grand piano. They were followed by Our Lady J who got settled at the keyboard and then, with her glittery hand, began playing with one of her electronic doohickies to create the sound of a type-writer to use as the intro to '9 To 5', the first song of the evening.

She ran through a series of songs, some of Dolly's and some were her own in which the choir sometimes sang and sometimes stood silently. Inbetween songs we were regaled with tales of J's youth growing up in a small town that was half Amish and others of her praying to Marilyn Monroe in odd scenes of witchcraft while putting on her make-up (hey, if it works ...).

J made a brief reference to the current debate about the word 'tranny' and said she doesn't care what we call her provided we do so with respect. She explained why she moved from New York to Los Angeles a few years ago in that she was fed up with cat calls because she dressed like a tart whereas everyone in LA dressed like tarts so she blended in. A wise woman she is! She also told us that her family finally accepts her as the daughter they never had while telling stories of what she wanted to do when she grew up and her mother telling her she couldn't be the clergyman's wife since she wasn't a girl.

As well as Dolly classics such as 'I Will Always Love You', 'Islands In the Stream' and 'Just Because I'm A Woman' J also gave us her own classics of the delicious 'Pink Prada Purse' and 'Picture Of A Man'. The encore was J alone on stage singing a piano driven 'Creep'. At one point she told us that she was pleased that London was so godless since it meant there was a lot of work for her to do, bringing her gospel to the godless. She also seemed quietly chuffed to have sold out her show!

It was nice to get the chance to say hello to her again at the end of the show at the merch table. I was delighted that she remembered me from the show four years ago talking about her disco version of Buffy Sainte-Marie's 'Little Wheel Spin And Spin' and recent tweets. I was also delighted with the badge she was giving away with her CD of 'Picture Of A Man' that bore the legend, "Not gay as in HAPPY but queer as in FUCK YOU".

At one point in the show I wondered at J's quiet calm demeanour and how that contrasts with her inner strength and courage, deciding to leave her little town for New York and deciding to transition while teaching music. To be so young and know exactly what she needs to be and wants and then doing it. What kind of strength is that? How brave to face the world having decided to become your real self, the self you were meant to be? Good on you J and come back to this godless city soon - we need your gospel electric.

Three Nights of Art

For three nights in a row last week I went to see art. That's the way it happens, with weeks of no going outs at all and then they all come along together.

On Wednesday I went up to Sadler's Wells to see Matthew Bourne's 'Play Without Words'. I saw it on its original run at the National Theatre in 2003 and it's the same production that has been revived as part of Matthew's 25th anniversary celebration. 'Play Without Words' is exactly that - a play without words. It's easy to follow the narrative and you can follow the story as it unfolds in front of you. Or can you?

The thing I like about 'Play Without Words' is that there are multiple depictions of the characters on stage at the same time so you can almost choose which narrative you want to follow. The lead character is Anthony who moves into his trendy house (in Chelsea I'm guessing) and he's played by three dancers on stage at the same time so we get the authoritative Anthony, the weak-willed Anthony and the inbetween. They then react to their girlfriend in different ways (played by three dancers with different characters). It's fascinating watching the different couplings and how they interact together. It's a very clever mechanism.

The show is based on the film 'The Servant' from the early '60s so we have lots of swinging sixties dancing, covert homosexual liaisons and coyness about sex.  It's a very entertaining show and well worth seeing.

On Thursday I went to the Soho Theatre to see Geo Wyeth in the small cabaret space downstairs. I saw Geo at the Soho Theatre four years ago (with Justin Bond and Our Lady J) when he went under the name of Novice Theory and I decided he was someone to watch. Novice Theory was a little waif with an accordion but Geo has grown up and matured and is confident in his own art.

The show was a mixture of music and performance art. Geo came on with his shirt pulled up around his shoulders and his trousers round his ankles with a cushion tied across his face with a belt. He staggered round drunk and got down off the stage with his keyboards to serenade us with some sound. At one point he unfolded a large sheet of polythene that he then spread over us as a tent and kept moving the tent from one side of the audience to the other as he recited a poem.

Geo's words and music are often quite complex and he uses his body and voice to give them additional power. He's a bit of a fidgiter - he wasn't still for a moment. While playing the piano he kept moving to stand up and then sit back down and his legs couldn't keep still while he played the guitar sitting on a stool. He brought out some amazing sounds from the guitar.

He was only on for just over an hour for this show (there were two other shows after his finished, including one by Eddie Izzard) and it was well worth seeing him.  His new album, 'Alien Tapes' has just been released so it's worth tracking it down and giving it a listen.

My final show last week was Penny Arcade's 'Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!' at the Arcola Tent in Dalston. It's subtitled, 'A passionate celebration of sex, freedom and art' and has been on the go for 20 years in different cities around the globe. Penny is now 62 and unrepentant, free with tales of her past, people she's known, the tribulations of being a faghag and telling tales of the financial realities of being a whore. The four words of the title of the show punctuate the show to good effect.

The show started at 7:30pm with half an hour of erotic dancing from a group of dancers who could do amazing things with their bodies - my favourite was the pole dancer who just sat at the top of her pole without holding on at all. Clothing was in the style of skanty.

Penny came on at 8:00pm and was on stage more or less until about 10:45pm with a half-time break for a trip to the bar and dancing on the stage. I suppose the attraction of this show depends on your age and outlook. Penny is 10 years older than me and has lived the bohemian life - and still seems to from the sound of it. I liked her scene playing the receptionist in a brothel and then playing a prostitute discussing her motivations for embracing her trade. I liked her tirade against the 'Guardian' reviewer that dared to call the show old fashioned due to her section about HIV and AIDS in the '80s. That was part of her world in the '80s and shouldn't be lost simply because things have moved on. That seems to be something she's quite keen on, preserving the 'underground' landscape she grew up in and inhabited from the '60s till today. If you lose your shared history where are you? 

We were invited to dance on the stage and I didn't. In the last section Penny came on stage to dance and slowly remove her clothes while we heard and watched a video of someone quoting a Lenny Bruce sequence about censorship. When she removed her bra some of the gays behind me thought they were in an American talk show and started whooping so she silenced them with a wave of her hand and a thumb towards the screen - listen to what's being said, she signed. And her stripping continued till she was naked. It was at that point I thought, 'ok, I didn't dance. but if she asked us, would I strip?' and I'm not sure what my response would be.

I'm very pleased I saw this show.  It's not for everyone, I suspect, but it worked for me. I particularly liked the sequence when the lights were turned off and she gradually walked round the set blowing out candles as she told us tales and celebrated the freedom of all of us being equal in the dark. The show has now closed at the Arcola Tent but will re-open on 8 August in the Old Vic Tunnels. I think I'll go to see her again.

An added bonus was seeing @dawnamberharvey spin the choons for the show and get name-checked in the programme!

Geo Wyeth - Soho Theatre Residency

Geo Wyeth has a short residency at the Soho Theatre in July. You might know Geo better as Novice Theory and it's under that name that he appeared on 'Later... with Jools Holland' back in 2008. I saw Geo a couple of times back then when he was part of Justin Bond's 'Lustre' show at The Soho Theatre when he played a waif with an accordion and sang a mesmerising song.

After seeing him live I downloaded his album, 'At The End We Listen' by Novice Theory. It's a collection of great lyrical songs with simple musical backing. He followed that up with the 'Ordinary Death' EP which was a bit more musically adventurous. He then gave us the 'Blackone' EP by Jive Grave, a band of experimental musicians. And now we have 'Alien Tapes' by Geo Wyeth.

'Alien Tapes' is probably the least accessible of his records - or rather the least immediately accessible of his records, but it grows on you with each listen. It includes an excellent re-interpretation of 'At The End We Listen' from his first record. I hear new lyrical and musical twists and turns each time I listen to the record. I'm really looking forward to seeing Geo perform these songs in July when I see him at the Soho Theatre in July.

When I see him I'll also get hold of the physical copy of the record. I supported Geo's Kickstarter appeal to pre-order the record so he could make it. He's bringing my copy over with him from New York when he comes here in July - he's already sent me a Bandcamp download code so I can enjoy it and I've listened to it a few times.

It's important - as a point of principle - that artists like Geo are enabled to explore their musical, performance and artistic boundaries. Where artists like Geo go today, who knows, but maybe pop music will follow in five years time? I doubt it, to be honest, but it's important that someone pushes the boundaries and who knows what might result from that? Geo is an artist and writes astonishing songs. Give him a listen and maybe go to see his performances at the Soho Theatre or download his music?

Here is Geo's appearance four years ago on 'Later..':