Boogaloo Stu: on Marilyn, large wigs, and very large phalluses...

Hi everyone and welcome to season two of My Queer Museum, a podcast about the queer objects and queer stories that you might not find in your average museum or archive. I'm David Sheppeard. And I'm Roni Guetta and we had such a time making season one, chatting to some of Brighton and Hove's most interesting queer residents, that we felt we had to continue on our mission. But before we meet our first guest, we want to tell you about our new queer community generated digital museum, Queer Heritage South. It's a new online space where we can share and discover our queer heritage. So we'd encourage you to have a dig around those drawers. Maybe it's a ticket store. A dub for your favourite queer band or a picture of you at your first Brighton Pride or maybe a badge from a protest march. What we'd love you to do is to photograph it and to upload it to our digital museum.

You can find our digital museum at www.queerheritagesouth.co.uk. So it's season two of My Queer Museum podcast and our first guest is Boogaloo Stu. Hello. Stu, would you like to introduce yourself? I'm Boogaloo Stu and I am, well, I like to call myself a showbiz multitasker because I've done so many different things over the years. But essentially, most people will know me as a DJ and a cabaret performer, maybe as a musician and theatre maker. And also maybe now as an artist or an artist, maybe even with an E on it. Fantastic. Today, Stu, we're going to be asking you to select some items from your abundant collection of props, costumes, tat, showbiz items and objects from your long career. So, Stu, can you tell us what your first object that you would like to put into our imaginary queer museum might be?

Well, I'd like to wind the clock back to before my actual career began and really pick something that inspired me in all kinds of ways. And it's Marilyn performing Calling Your Name on Top of the Pops in 1983. I was 14, I think, when this record came out. And the gender benders were already big news in the charts. Boy George and Pete Burns had already been on Top of the Pops. And I was fascinated by all of them. But no one really struck me like Marilyn did. He was, in my opinion, I think he really pushed the boundaries more than anyone else. You know, he had a girl's name. He was a muscular and handsome man in full makeup, lace and sequins on Top of the Pops on a Thursday night with millions and millions of viewers.

It was the show that everyone watched and talked about at school the next day. And I just remember this particular performance. I think it was the first time he'd been on Top of the Pops. And he was in a blue sequined suit. And the song, the clip opens with him with his back to the camera. And, you know, he's obviously a vision of blue sequins and long blonde dreadlocks. And you don't see his face. And I just imagine that there was a million straight men wondering who this beauty was going to be. And when he turned around, they were like, oh, my God, it's a fella. You know, this kind of there he is with his chest and his nipples on display. And it must have been a real gender fuck for those people.

And now I suppose it's maybe more commonplace that you see people pushing those boundaries and it's more acceptable. We've made great strides in all kinds of ways with sexuality and gender. But then it was to me, it was kind of punk. It was proper punk rock, probably almost unwittingly on Marilyn's part. But it was so in your face and so sexual where Boy George was like a doll and quite asexual. Marilyn was really, you know, flirting with everyone. So he was that performance was really inspiring for me. I think it helped me to identify who my tribe were. And, you know, years later, when I was in university, I went to New York and lived in New York for a year. And I started clubbing. I was hanging out with drag queens.

And that, you know, I found my tribe. But I think the seed was Marilyn singing on top of the pops. Pete Burns as well in his tiny little Vivian Westwood knickers, barely managing to contain his ball bag. But and Divine as well, actually, singing You Think You're a Man on top of the pops. They were all on top of the pops, you know. And it's just really weird. This little microcosm, this little period of time in the early 80s when all these people were having big hit songs and having huge exposure to the mainstream. And then it all kind of fizzled out and disappeared. But obviously, for me, it was it was the it lit the torch paper, as it were. And I kind of were you watching top of the pops by yourself or was it something that was kind of within the you're watching as a family?

Do you remember what that kind of experience was like? Yeah, I was watching it with my family. You know, we'd all be sitting watching it together. And I can remember feeling really awkward. I mean, it probably wasn't visible to my parents, but I was kind of quite rigid, you know, like unable to move, unable to turn my head to see if they might be looking at me. Like they might be looking at me and thinking, Stu likes this or or Stu's like that. Or I don't know, you know, it's yeah, it was it was embarrassing and awkward for me to watch. But inside I was like going, this is amazing. Yeah. I remember over the weekend, somebody I was talking with somebody and they were talking about the David Bowie performance of Boys Keep Swinging in the 70s, where he starts the performance as a as a is in male role and then finishes the performance in female role.

And that that was the only Top of the Pops performance in history where there were there were more viewers at the beginning of the performance than there were at the end of the performance. And there was this kind of mass switch over that happened as a result of that kind of provocative gender performance. And it's just funny how something, yeah, something so mainstream as Top of the Pops has just broken ground for so many different things. And you wonder how conscious it was because they did have a bit of editorial control, I guess. I mean, it was based on who was in the charts. But Marilyn, as far as I'm aware, wasn't ever like a number one artist, whether they were slightly more top 20s, maybe top 30s kind of vibes.

Yeah. Yeah. I think he he wasn't like a huge star, but he was he was in the slipstream of Boy George's success. You know, that's probably the only reason he got a record deal was because he was Boy George's friend and record companies thought they could sort of exploit him as a as a new Boy George. But I was I suppose for me it was all about timing. I was too young to appreciate what David Bowie was doing in the in the mid and late 70s. I kind of discovered it retrospectively. But for me, it was that sort of teenage, adolescent moment when music was really important to me and style was really important to me. And all of those things kind of converged with with Marilyn, even though he's you know, his success was really fleeting.

And he maybe wasn't even that talented, but it was just something about the performance and the confidence he had to be that person. He was at the right time in the right place for you. Yeah. Did you buy the single of Marilyn? Was this something that translated into a purchase or was it was it just something that was like ephemeral TV moment? I did buy the seven inch. I bought the seven inch of calling your name. I didn't want again. I was even I was quite my behavior was quite tempered even then in terms of what music I would buy and what my record collection looked like. I didn't want it to look too gay, you know. So while I might have a Marilyn seven inch, I might also have some Black Sabbath.

And how old are you at this point? 14. Right. So I kind of I had looking back on it, I did have lots of queer music. I was a huge fan of the Associates. Billy McKenzie, the singer from the Associates, was it was he was queer, but he wasn't out. But looking back, there was kind of signs that he was that you could identify. And, you know, he was he was a diva. The way he sang was was he was a real sort of male diva. And then I had, you know, but I would sort of I was into dance music as well. I was into all kinds of music, I suppose. So my my record collection did reflect that. But I think if I was just exclusively into Boy George and Dead or Alive and Divine and Marilyn, I think it would have been screamingly obvious that I was a screaming gay lord.

And I didn't want to be out at that point. I suppose growing up where I grew up, it would have just not been safe for me to be as out as I was once I got to university. And you grew up in Scotland, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. And sort of fairly, fairly rural or was it kind of? It was fairly rural. I mean, my parents lived in a fairly sort of rural part of the country, but I went to school in Perth. So, you know, it's just like a provincial town. But I think, you know, people are surprisingly tolerant in Perth and in Scotland generally. I mean, I love Scotland and I love the Scottish people, but I didn't have the confidence to challenge their, you know, to find out whether they were tolerant or not at that time.

So I kept my sexuality hidden until I got to university, basically. Because I'm feeling how I'm not in it. I need this right now. I'm feeling it. Stand back to me. So, Stu, where are you going to take us next in this journey through your life in objects? What is your second entry to our queer museum? Well, my second entry to your imaginary queer museum is my quiff wig coupled with a pair of platform shoes.

Mainly because it's been my signature look for almost 30 years. So the quiff wig and platform shoes have been with me through the various highs and lows across my entire career. And, you know, my fashion silhouette in between times has changed over the years, I suppose. I had many years of, you know, the body confident years, you might say, of wearing only a tiny sequined thong and nipple tassels, which has kind of given way to a new look, which is maybe the past few years, it's been an abundance of frills. But the quiff and shoes have always been the kind of staples that have remained at the topping and tailing the boogaloo stew look. So I kind of thought because they're, you know, fairly iconic parts of my image, they'd be a good entry for your museum.

And obviously, I suppose, as a reference point, they really connect with your music collection. But what was that? What was your first memory? What was that of wearing a wig, of wearing the quiff wig and wearing the platforms? Was there a moment where it kind of penny dropped for you and you thought, this is this is me. This is what makes me feel like I'm a performer. And I really want to urge anyone who's listening to just Google Boogaloo Stew's wigs or Boogaloo Stew, because these wigs are over the top in every possible direction. Next level. You know, they really are a signature. I think for me, the quiff look actually came to me by accident. I didn't intend to have a quiff or for that to be my look.

But when I started out in the sort of early 90s, I experimented with lots of different looks, hats with little fringed wigs attached and lots of different styles. I was always conscious that I didn't want to be a drag queen. I didn't want to be perceived as a drag queen. And I didn't feel that I was a drag queen. So for that reason, I always avoided, you know, long, big wigs and stuff like that that might mean people thought I was a drag queen. I've got nothing against drag queens, but I didn't feel that I was one. So I wanted to kind of carve out this flamboyant male character in the style of Liberace or whoever. So I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what hairstyle was going to suit that.

And it was actually a friend of mine. I had this wig and he cut it for me. And purely by accident, it ended up in this kind of cox curl. The way he cut it, it was kind of all up at the front and in a sort of cox curl. And it looked really good. And we were like, oh, yeah, this is this is something. So that's how the quiff was born. And that was probably about 1993, sometime around then, about a year into Boogaloo's showbiz career. And, yeah, from there that from then on, I would buy wigs and I would cut them and style them into increasingly elaborate wigs. Sometimes I would sometimes I would attach jewels, you know, with jewel glue and I would dye them pastel colors and what have you. But it was always a real uphill struggle because I wasn't a hairstylist.

So I'd quite often find myself with, you know, working on a wig for hours and then throwing it at the wall. Stu, I'm very interested in this, you know, you saying that you didn't want to be perceived as a drag queen. And so the gendered, non-gendered element of your persona, because when I see Boogaloo's Stu, I see glamorous 70s. I always tell you, oh, you know, I remember bumping you into Marlboro and just saying, oh, Stu, you look so pedestrian. I mean, you're so over the top. The shoes, the yeah, you know, but I wouldn't know how to define your look. Yeah. You know, so that's why I always sort of slightly, slightly came at it with a joke, because, you know, everything about you is shiny and plasticky and, you know, you look like a cartoon.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I mean, that's, I suppose, what I was aiming for. But I was always, I was always kind of consciously treading my own path in terms of, you know, like I say, how I wanted to be perceived. I didn't want, I suppose it goes back to talking about Marilyn on Top of the Pops and he had that, he was clearly a man. And maybe that's what it, that's what it goes back to. I didn't want to be trying to be someone else in terms of the gender that I was portraying. I wanted to, to be a man, but I wanted to have that flamboyance and be allowed to be this persona, this person in costume, but not for people just to, to assume that I was a drag queen. People, people do though, regardless of any of that.

It doesn't bother me, but people still think I'm a drag queen after 30 years. So yeah. What can you do? What can you do? And I think that, um, so have there been any moments, I guess, in the Boogaloo Stew journey where you thought, oh, geez, I really want to retire this quiff or this wig? Or has it been a kind of continued love affair as you've moved through the different phases of what you've done? I mean, I've had lots of disasters over the year, over the years with, with, uh, the quiff. You know, like I, there was one night, uh, shinky shonky club night that I was running in London for many years where I fell down a flight of stairs, uh, in my platform shoes. I was totally fine somehow at the bottom, but my wig flew off, um, like scuttling across the, the dance floor and the heel of the block heel of my platform shoe also came off.

So when I stood up, you know, I had to go and kind of, people were helping me up and I had no wig on. Uh, you know, my shoe was like hanging off and it, it was a shambles. Not many people saw it was in a kind of discreet corner of the club, thankfully. So, but it, you know, it quite often I get tangled up in door hinges and lighting rigs and, you know, and it might almost all fully come off. Um, and similarly with the platforms, there's always a risk of going arse every tit. So, but I have, I suppose in over the years I've experimented, there was a period of time, so late nineties where I thought maybe I should try some different styles. Um, and I made at one point a spinning wig, which was part of a kind of act that I did, which was a medley of, um, spinning themed songs.

Like you spin me round and spinning wheel. And I like battery operated. Yeah. I bought a motor from Maplins and I kind of created this kind of thing on top of my head, which had a wig stitched around a head, a sort of base that sat on, was kind of clamped to my head. And then on top of that, there was like this, it wasn't a quiff though, because it would have been technically too difficult for me to achieve, but it was this extra section of wig that sat on top of this motorized section. And I had a wire going down my, inside my suit into my hand connected to a little switch. And I would switch on and off and the wig would suddenly spin out of control like a helicopter. Um, so, but again, you know, people, obviously people thought that was great fun, but, um, it wasn't the boogaloo stew look that they'd grown to know and love, I suppose.

So, so, yeah. It kind of brings up one of the things that I think is, uh, is that you're such an extraordinary maker of things and, um, that there's a kind of authorship, I suppose, that runs through all of your looks, which is that you don't really rely. It really is a creation of your imagination rather than relying on purchasing or even collaborating with lots of different people. Cause, cause I guess you came out of this kind of fashion, um, uh, ability to make clothes, I guess. And it's given you this really singular sense for over that, your whole career. Can you maybe sort of talk a little bit about how that, whether that's kind of given you a freedom, I guess, that other acts maybe don't have.

Yeah. I think being able to make stuff has definitely given me the freedom to do whatever I want. I mean, it's not always easy and I have to kind of gear myself up to thinking, right, I'm going to have to spend a week here making something. And it's not going to be pleasant, the experience, because sometimes it does go wrong and they don't, things don't fit or whatever. And it's really frustrating. Uh, but the end goal is to achieve a certain look. So I have been lucky in that respect that I've been able to apply those talents and I haven't had to rely on anyone else. And as you say, it it's, I'm only limited by my own imagination. So, um, you know, That's pretty limitless. Yeah. So like with, with, um, props and things like that, I've always just thought, well, I'm sure I can make that.

And I'm not bothered if things aren't perfect. I'm not bothered if they don't last forever or don't look immaculate. But for me, it's more about the, I mean, some of the things that I do are really well made and beautifully crafted or whatever. But then if I'm making something to use once or twice and it's just for a specific joke, that's going to last a minute or something like that. I don't worry if it, if it looks a bit sort of homespun. Um, so in fact, it can add to it, you know, like the spinning wig was very homespun looking. It didn't look professional.

Um, if you had to pick a particular wig and a particular pair of platforms to go into our collection, is there a kind of iconic one where you thought I absolutely nailed that? And where was that worn? What was that for in particular? Probably the iconic image of me in terms of being at my most, uh, trim and, you know, young and confident. Uh, it would have been in the sort of mid nineties when there's, there's, there is a photograph of this, but, um, I won't be sending it to you, I'm afraid. Um, I think the zenith for Boogs with the Quiffen platforms was at Stella Starr's Vava Vum club night, which was the old Gloucester club, uh, which is now the North Lane Brewhouse. Um, and Stella used to put on these, uh, burlesque nights of entertainment.

And this is in the very early days of the burlesque revival. So she was kind of ahead of her time in, in putting these nights on. So she invited me to, to sing a song with a, with a band, which is something that I was, you know, that was a rare opportunity for me to sing a song with a band. So I, we rehearsed House of Bamboo, the old Andy, Andy Williams classic. Um, and I had, you know, there was a brass section that was, it was amazing. And we also put in this kind of strip section in the middle and I'm not a stripper, you know, I've never, I'm not a burlesque artist, but I thought, you know, it's a laugh. It'll be fun. So I made this outfit. I had a big white quiff, which had, um, sort of rhinestones studded all over it.

And then I'd made this outfit, which it all came off basically. And all I was left on stage wearing was a tiny little heart shaped sequined nipple tassels. And a little, it's like a, I don't know what they call them, but it's like a clip on cod piece. So it's, it's strapless. Wow. There's nothing holding up except, and there was a sort of a little kind of feather tail that went up my bum crack and sprouted out the top. So, um, that's, that's probably the most, that's the most confident I was, I suppose, in terms of being exposed on stage, being nude, naked. I don't know. That would be about 1999 probably. And I was there in my platform shoes with, with my quiff and practically nothing else on.

You have a picture of this, do you? Um, I don't have a picture from that performance, but I do have a picture of that outfit in the final stage. I'm not putting any pressure on you, but I think it would be just fantastic to have it in. Yeah. It could be in the X rated section. Um, yeah. Of which I'm sure you'll have lots of things to contribute. Yeah.

And I think we have made it to the third and last object. Yes. So the third and last object is, um, a gigantic spunking cock. Um. Of course. Which a bit like my quiff and platform shoes, um, gigantic spunking cocks, um, have featured in my work across my entire career. And I don't purposely put them in there thinking, oh, I must get a gigantic spunking cock into this show or onto that. You know, I, it, they just make their way in there somehow. They just suddenly appear. There's always a cock. There's always a cock and bull somewhere. Um, and quite often it's oversized and, um, you know, fully functioning. So. Just coming out of your subconscious, making its way into your art. Yeah, I guess so.

I mean, I like cocks. So why wouldn't they appear? And I suppose, I don't know. There's something, I suppose I'm celebrating something that's, um, you know, it's natural and it's quite primitive. And it's instinctive for us to kind of look at cocks and like cocks or draw cocks or whatever. It might seem childish, but it's weird. The response it gets, it's still somehow outrageous and a little bit taboo in, in cabaret and theatre and stuff. You know, people get embarrassed and laugh. And I suppose maybe I'm just playing on that by making sure that whatever I do has a gigantic cock in it, you know. So Stu, your top three artifacts that you've put a giant cock on. You know, I know you make, uh, what are you making at the moment?

Pottery or ceramics? Well, I'm doing ceramics. There's no cocks in my ceramics just yet, but I've been doing some dioramas which have got huge cocks on them. I set out not, I set out thinking I wasn't going to put cocks on my artworks. And there's two that one of them, they're kind of cocks strapped to rockets, basically. They're like rocketing through space, these enormous cocks. And one of the, one of them has a little window in it where there's loads of, like hundreds of little sperms looking out the window of the rocket cock. And then the other one, they're all, they're all firing out the little sperms are all firing out of the end of it. Um, so yeah, they're in my dioramas and they will eventually make their way onto my ceramics, I'm sure.

But, um, prior to that, I mean, I can think of, there's a, there's a few really specific, uh, gigantic spunking cocks, which, which took center stage. You know, I've, I've said to people in the past that the gigantic spunking cock, regardless of who was on stage, myself, Miss High Leg Kick, the incredible tall lady, whoever was in my show or my cabaret or whatever it was, the gigantic spunking cock was like an additional cast member who always got the best lines and the biggest laugh. It's like the thing that was saved and then, you know, it would be, it would be rolled out and people would be bent double at the, the GPS. So, um, but yeah, there's, I, I would say there's, there's two really classic, there's three actually.

I mean, there was, it started off, there was a, there was a tit wank act that we did where there was myself, Miss High Leg Kick and Sid Skill. And we used to perform at Ducky. We, and Sid Skill and Miss High Leg Kick were dressed as breasts made of, um, hula hoops with really stretchy pink fabric over them. And they kind of pulled the hula hoop over their whole body. So the, the, the body frame became the breast and the head, their head became the nipple area. So they would shuffle on stage with, and then I would be in between them and I had this full body stocking, pink stretchy fabric, penis shaft that covered my whole body. And then my whole head was like a wadding bell end with a whole cup for my face.

And inside the bell end, there was like a tube of, like a piece of plastic tube attached to a fairy liquid bottle. And the fairy liquid bottle was at the back of the costume where no one could see it. And I can't even remember what we did, you know, what, what we were lip syncing to an advert or something that was, you know, I don't know what the act was at all, but that was the way it looked. And it climaxed with me squeezing the fairy liquid bottle and water. It was just water in it in those days, fired out all over the audience. Um, and that would have been sort of, again, mid nineties, maybe 1995 or 1996, actually a bit later, cause it was at Ducky. So 97 or 98 probably. And then it got slightly more sophisticated and I had met, there's an act that I did called pump up my, well, it was called pump up my tits.

And it was a performance to pump up the jam, the song by Technotronic with adapted lyrics. And I had made this really elaborate costume again, out of the same stretchy pink fabric. I had loads of, uh, slightly puce flesh tone color. And I'd made a full body stocking with lots of pockets in it. And, uh, in the pockets where the breasts were, I put two big balloons attached to little short pieces of plastic tubing with tiny little corks put in the end of the tube. Um, and then there were two similar balloons in one in each buttock. Um, and then I had a big wig, which had a balloon inside it and a tube. And then I had a massive cock and balls and there was a balloon in each bollock and there wasn't the balloon in the cock, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Um, so anyway, the act was that I lip synced to a recording of me having adapted the lyrics of pump up my, pump up the jam to pump up my tits, pump up my arse, pump up my balls. What have you in an Irish accent? I don't know why, but I was doing an Irish accent and I was flanked by Miss High Leg Kick and the incredible tall lady in this act who, as I was singing the song, would unplug the little corks and blow up the breasts. Um, I would just pump up my tits and they would blow up my breasts and put the cork back in so that they didn't deflate. And my costume would inflate at the front and then pump up my ass. They would pump up my buttocks and then pump up my balls. They blew up my balls and then pump up my cock.

They didn't actually pump up my cock. They just massaged my balls. And then as the moment of glory came for the gigantic spunking cock, inside the shaft of the cock, um, I had hidden a turkey baster full of hand cream. So the bottom of that, the turkey baster was roughly where the balls were and the top was just peeping out of the bell end. And at the appropriate moment, at the end of the song, I would squeeze the turkey baster and hand cream spunk would shoot out all over the audience.

So I'm just trying to visualize it as you're describing it and I just feel such massive fowl. Yeah, the kind of logistics on it. So that was pump up the jam. Quite something. Just like, and were you rehearsing these with beforehand or was it quite sort of impromptu, like get on stage and we'll work it out kind of vibes? It was a bit like that because we all had our own thing going on. It was like, I was a club DJ. Miss High Leg Kick had a day job at that time. And the incredible tall lady was at college. We didn't really get together for rehearsals. There was no, you know, Ducky weren't paying us that much to kind of put on a show. So we'd kind of talk about it on the phone and say, well, and I would go off and make this costume.

And then we'd, we'd, the rehearsal would be at the Vauxhall Tavern at like 8.15. Before the club opened. And within that rehearsal, it wouldn't necessarily be in full costume. It would be kind of like, I'll stand here and you'll be there. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, it was a bit like doing a gig at a festival where it's just a line check and you're on. Gosh, it's quite something. I mean, do you feel like, so the giant spunking cocks were a real fixture, I guess, of Dynamite Boogaloo and your time in Brighton. Has the cock kind of evolved over time? Or has it, has your use of it changed as, as your, as your career has progressed, I guess? Has it caused you any problems? Yeah. I mean, well, there's another, this is probably the, the, the most ridiculous story of all, actually.

And it nearly caused a problem, which I was invited to be a guest performer at Say Barbican, which was the Ducky Christmas show. And it had already been at the Vauxhall Tavern and won lots of praise and what have you. So it transferred to the Barbican. And in addition to the main cast, they had guest performers for a week. And I was one of the performers. And one of, you had to come up with your own acts. It was a tabletop, a tabletop cabaret show where all the acts got onto the table. There was about six or seven tables around the room with about 10 people seated around each one. And you ordered your act to the table and they, the act arrived and the act would arrive and get on the table and do the show.

So there was quite often simultaneous, lots of simultaneous shows vying for attention. And, you know, it's a big cacophony of noise in the same room. And one of my acts was called Boogaloo Stew Wanks for You, which is where I would come out with a Zimmer frame and I'd sort of shuffle over to the table. Prior to this, people would be given umbrellas or pack-a-max and quite often they didn't use them. They were like, what do I need this for? So anyway, I would arrive at the table and I'd sort of clamber up onto the table and then I'd have a copy of the People's Friend magazine and I'd flick through it. And when I found an advert for the Stanishter lift, I would suddenly become really aroused and excited and reveal my gigantic spunking cock, which I'd kind of been crouching over to hide.

I'd suddenly reveal it. And then I'd just basically start wanking it. I'd just be like looking at this advert and the People's Friend wanking a great big fake phallus. And then, of course, eventually I would become over, I'd be overcome with erotic fantasy and I would spooge. And the turkey baster would be squeezed and the hand cream would be dripping off the lights onto the heads of the people who didn't wear their pack-a-mac. And the reason, I almost got into trouble for this because, well, I didn't really get into trouble, but everyone was a bit worried about it. Because one night the Olivier judges were coming to see the show at the Barbican and there was a lot of debate backstage as to whether my wanking act should be removed from the menu or whether it should be in some kind of edited form.

And Simon from Ducky, being the kind of person he is, quite rightly said, we do it exactly as it should be. Of course it should be on the menu. And everyone was like, what if they order it? What will you do? What if the Olivier judges order your act? I was like, well, I'll just bloody do it, won't I? And of course, the very first thing they did was order Boogaloo Stew Wanks for you. So I had to go out. Have it. And I wanked on the judges.

Someone had to do it. Someone had to do it. You took one for the team. They got it, yeah. And, you know, again, everyone afterwards was still really uptight about it. They were like, oh my God, I mean, what are they going to think of it? And I was like, well, what's the worst that's going to happen? You won't win the bloody award. It doesn't matter, does it, that much? Anyway, it turned out we did. They got the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. I don't know whether me wanking on them swung it or. I would say, you know. That's my guess. But, you know, there have been times when it's, when it has drawn people into thinking, is this, is this appropriate? I mean, obviously it's not appropriate for every situation.

No, primary schools? No. No. No. So, I don't know. But the cock has, it has kind of disappeared from my repertoire instead of live, in terms of live work. I haven't actually used a gigantic spunking cock for a long time. Have you outgrown it or do you think the taste has changed and you sort of? I don't know because it's still appearing in other ways. Like I say, it's appearing in my artworks. I can't stay away from drawing cocks. And also, before I started doing these artworks, it was, they were appearing in different things. Like my badge making that I was doing at events where I would sit down with people and I'd make them a badge, a big sort of six centimetre badge. And I, they'd sit down and tell me their name.

And then I would draw them in a sexually compromising position with a gigantic spunking cock, probably splattering them with spooge. You know, something like that. And it would be hilarious. And then I'd make it into a badge and off they'd go. But again, badges covered with cocks. So the, the gigantic, the real time gigantic spunking cock made of fabric and wadding and turkey basters was kind of retired maybe about eight or nine years ago. But then the badges took over with obscenity. And now the badges have kind of been retired. It's, it's creeping into my artworks that I'm making. So I just can't stay away from it. I just think it's going to be there forever. No, I think Freud will have a lot to say about this creeping of the cock.

Well, I think this is the perfect time for this cock contraption to go into the museum as it's been retired then. Turkey baster and all. I think it's, this is the time. So thank you so much, Stu, for, for suggesting these beautiful, wonderful contributions to the Boogaloo stew wing of our queer museum. It's been absolutely delightful to talk to you as always. You're very welcome. Thank you for helping me. Thank you. We played Boogaloo stews fabulous interview. If there was ever a time to use that word to our resident queer museum curator, EJ Scott. And this is what EJ had to say. Roni, I just must say, I loved hearing about Stu's practice and particularly his career long obsession with crafting giant spurting cocks.

I mean, to be fair, Stu's not the only one obsessed with penis art or the art of the penis. In 2016, Highway England's archaeological team were working on a road upgrade to the A14 when they uncovered a 2,000-year-old millstone. A millstone's like two big stones that you run together to, you know, like grind grains. This one was about like a metre wide. And it had a massive willy sculpted on the side of it. And it looks like the person who would have gripped onto it as they made their flour or would have like literally held onto it. Or they would have at least got an eyeful every time they needed to do a bit of the milling. And, you know, not like stews. It didn't spurt. But it sure would have added a little smile to getting the daily grind done.

You know, those Romans. They sure did know how to get things done efficiently, didn't they? And then in 2014, a team of prehistoric archaeologists came across the oldest known dick pic in history on the remote Aegean island of Astapalaia. I'm not sure if my pronunciation is very good, but we know where it is at least. And the willy graffiti outdates any squiggles on the back of the door of the Marlborough by about two and a half thousand years. The archaeologists leading the team, Dr. Andreas Vlakopoulos, described them as tantalisingly clear and monumental in scale. But he points out that their real value lies in the fact that they not only expressed sexual desire, but they actually talked about the act of sex itself.

And this is like really, really rare. So I guess we need to think about what does this have to do with Stu's massive cock? Well, actually, having a giggle about sex is really an important release for a community that has historically been persecuted for it, right? It's a reclaiming of our right to enjoy it. So no wonder it's historically been central to our culture. And it's also important to think about the making that goes into the shows that our communities adore. The lewd and the crude of the queer cabaret world has been underpinned by the DIY craft skills of the community. Stu mentioned he used to perform for Ducky. And you only have to think of Robin Whitmore's entire career that he's made making cardboard scenes for Ducky shows.

You can often see him wheeling around shopping trolleys full of boxes. And at the 50-year partial decriminalisation celebrations in Hull put on by Ducky called 50 Queers for 50 Years, he and local gay Brightonian artists, Patrick Bullock. You'd recognise Patrick's work if you go to the children's parade in Brighton each year. He makes really iconic paper lanterns. Well, Patrick and Robin led the local Hull community, straight and queer, in a craft-making extravaganza in empty shops, where they created 50 effigies of everyone from the Lesbian Avengers to Genesis P.R.H. And then they all carried them around a huge procession down the High Street and into the square. So the actual crafting, the craft-making, was also community-building at the same time.

And, you know, here in Brighton, we know that ingenious making skills have always played a role in bringing our communities together, be it on the stage, in protests, or more recently, in the museum. So for the Museum of Transology, one freezing Christmas winter, and I mean it was freezing, a group of trans people and our friends made the entire set for the exhibition out of found repurposed materials, including our beloved 10-foot tranequin that we mosaicked with broken mirrors that has a women's toilet door symbol on one side and a men's one too, and they intersect at right angles and it rotates so that the gendered form is in constant motion. And at the Queer the Peer exhibition, the wonderful community curators spent months and months and months

making versions of peer games that represented parts of local queer history that we didn't have physical evidence of in the museum collection, but they wanted to include in the exhibition. I'm thinking, for example, about the Elphinstone Dick piece. You'll remember it, Roni. Elphinstone Dick was born in 1842. She died in 1902. She was a champion swimmer who taught swimming at Brill's Baths in Pool Valley, and she won the hearts of locals when she swam seven miles from Shoreham to Brighton in really awful rough conditions in a record-breaking time of two hours and 43 minutes. And then she moved to Australia with her partner Alice Moon, and she opened Melbourne's first women's-only gymnasium in 1879.

Well, you should have seen the object that's recreated her swim that was made by community curator Deb and illustrated by Lisa Hoskins. It's under a Perspex Square case. That's all very museum-y. But there's like these hand-painted wooden waves that swoosh around in front of a brightened scene that's hand-drawn in ink that's historically accurate. And by turning the handle, visitors see this little Elphinstone Dick pop up and down out of the waves for breath in front of Regency Square. I mean, it's such an epic tribute, and surely nothing our lesbian four-sister would have ever imagined a couple of creative dykes spending months in her memory making nearly a century and a half later. So I just think it's really important to remember that craft brings together communities,

just like Stu does, from the Charleston lot to today's Brighton activist group, Cutie Pock Narratives and their zines, to young non-binary Brighton artist Colin Levens and their incredible embroidered jacket and skirt that has faces of their trans heroes on it, like Travis Alavanza that's in the Queer the Peer exhibition, from props to Stu's cocks, zines to protest banners. Queer culture isn't historically just about the pub and the museum and showing off. It's also about the putting on of the show and showing the world what we're made of. Thanks for listening. The My Queer Museum podcast is a Queer Heritage South queer in Brighton project created by Marlborough Productions and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

For more information about our work, visit queerandbrighton.co.uk Original music and editing by Olive Mondegreen