Celebrate ’08- Queer Cabaret
For those of our readers that don’t hark from Leicester, ‘Celebrate ’08′ is the Leicester LGB centre headed by Sian Lambert valiently trying to get the gay celebrations back on track after the mysterious disappearence of Leicester Gay Pride (of which, incidentally I know little about; just whispers on the homo grape vine)
So, we’ve had a week of lovely events ranging from Poker For Young Lesbians to a football match and ‘pink picnic’ which will be taking place in Victoria Park tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. On Wednesday four fifths of the YourFace team attended a screening of Shortbus at the Phoenix Arts Theatre, and then last night three fifths of us spent a lovely evening at the Y Theatre for ‘Queer Cabaret’ as Mr Morgan put his funny-man talents to good use as compare for the evening.
First off we had some Egyptian belly dancing from the Afifi troupe, then some very nice chilled-out flute and guitar tunes from Easy Sundays. Burlesque dancer Darkteaser gave us one performance to a song I would very much like to download (help?) and then a second performance after the interlude to “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts” (apt). Both dances were riveting but I have to confess to sitting in scared silence as we’d been pre-warned that she has been known to pop balloons full of glitter in hecklers faces. Woo! Apparently she’s allergic to feathers, so she’s brave too.
Finally, as is traditional, came the last act of the evening; InVocal. This four piece, all female band from Northampton perform with a cello, guitar and clarinet alongside a variety of maraccas and of course their lovely voices. I certainly wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did throughout their songs. Very much in the style of Smack the Pony the girls tell stories of lost loves and (in their own words) about being a slag. Thusly we were treated to some of the sharpest, funniest and most musically stunning songs that I’ve heard for a long time. My highlight was ‘Cheer Up Frowny Face’, a bloody marvellous and blackly funny song about depression and self harm and I chuckled like an loon at the bridge:
“Two words; Lighten. Up.
I can understand you cried
When your bereavement councillor died,
But you’ve been sad enough.”
But InVocal shouldn’t be dismissed as mere frippery. ‘Magic Tricks’ was a serious note that after all the laughing nearly made me weep. Pop over to their website or MySpace and I’m sure a Facebook profile is lurking, but these are definitely one to see live.
Thank you to Darkteaser for the picture which I borrowed (stole) from her Facebook.
