Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
Another queer venue to be struck down: Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club is tottering, reopening, and running but with the shadow of eviction looming. However, some heavy hitters (Equality) have rallied behind the banner, an online campaign, swell in support, and there is a tentative future.
So, on a balmy spring Monday evening I waited outside the Victorian edifice, unaccustomed to arriving there still in the sunlight. If you have never been, the inside is as rough and ready as the name suggests. A shell, hallowed out like a grapefruit after party after party. The upper room with a carpet that might have once had a pattern, and walls that might have once had a texture. Yet amongst the grot, there is charm, and pints well below the 7-pound standard elsewhere in this exorbitant city.
After 40 minutes of polite seated drinking and watching the doorperson’s dog Bosco wander around a selection of East London’s most gregarious queers, Robyn Herfellow’s Body Stocking Legion explodes onto the stage. Herfellow bubbled up to fame (in the fringe queer/drag scene) as the pianist and pet hitman for Séayoncé (aka Dan Wye), the perfect bad cop to her “good”. I reviewed Séayoncé deliciously good Christmas show, and found their duet the perfect antidote to all the festive emotional clogging going on outside The Yard theatre.
Charles Quittner (director) and Herfellow have crafted part gig, part political callup, part riotous orgy, all glorious chaos. In a utopian future (in my mind) chemicals placed in the water by Herfellow and crew have feminised the population and turned everyone trans. Body stockings are dragged over bankers and accountants and deviant sexuality and crime have forced what is “normal” now underground. Herfellow has their band to lead this battle, Vyvyan Wyld on guitar, Meg Narongchai on bass/banjo, and Shakira Stellar on drums. Visually they are like The Runaways, all leather and stockings, brain numbingly cool. Together they launch an attack on the city of London, the last stronghold of the heterosexuals using a punk/ska soundtrack to illustrate this final tussle for the hearts and holes of Britain.
Some theatrical techniques are attempted to break up the song/monologue/song/monologue layout. We have spotlights with torches, and a horde of semi-clad dances to liven up sections. Herfellow switches from keytar on the main stage to softer (but still insane) piano solos on a small stage behind us lit by a large rainbow arch.
Yes, it’s messy, with some diction problems early on, but that’s queer cabaret for you. It’s outrageous, eye-widening and utterly irreverent. Herfellow leads the charge, a mix of Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show, early Bowie, and musically Ian Dury and The Blockheads. They pound the keys with some of the bluest jokes I’ve heard this year. Perhaps we have had too much queer joy? It’s time for queer anger!
If you, like me value spaces like BGWMC what can you do, apart from signing up to a mailing list and eventually protesting outside? Well easy Mary, go on down, get drunk and have a dance, spend some of your hard-earned doubloons, experience some queer magic, cabaret, and fight with your feet! I mean there are worse commandments.
Grab your tickets here if you dare!
