Le Gateau Chocolat: on nightlife, operatic foremothers, and the power of plants

Hello and welcome to season two of My Queer Museum, a podcast about the queer objects and the queer stories that you won't find in your average museum or archive. I'm Roni Guetta. David Sheppeard and we had such a brilliant time making season one, gossiping with some of Brighton's most interesting queer residents, that we felt like we had to continue. But before we meet our second guest for this season, we want to tell you a little bit about our new queer community generated digital museum, queerheritagesouth.co.uk. It's a brand new queer digital museum that you can visit anytime you want and discover interesting local queer collections and stories. And you can contribute to the museum too. So have a dig around your boxes of memorabilia and find a ticket stub, a picture of you at your first Brighton Pride, or a badge from a protest march. We'd love for you to photograph it and upload it to our new museum.

Hi, everybody. We are absolutely thrilled to be joined by the one and only Legato Chocolat today. Hi. Hello. Hello. One of Brighton's and probably the UK's eminent cabaret, theatre, opera, mashup, wonderful performance artistes. And we would like you to please introduce yourself to our listeners, Gato. What are the most important things they need to know? Oh, this is, this is, that's a, that's a, that's rich. That's a good question. Hello, my name is Legato Chocolat. Today is Thursday, I believe, even though they all meld into one. I live in Brighton. I came here in 2000 to go to Sussex University to study law. I'm not a lawyer, thank fuck. And in my time in, at Sussex University, I discovered a really queer world of some really interesting artists that

unbeknownst to me, we're going to provide the, the foundation for who and what I'm still becoming. So it's been a rather exciting adventure. And I've, so that's how many 21 years now that I've been in Brighton. And I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. The, the, the, my work is taking me across the globe. It's always, the best thing is always being able to fly home, which is amazing. Did you get here because it was a queer capital of the UK or? No, so, no, no, no. So I didn't, I was in boarding school just outside Brighton in a place called Stenning, which is just past Shoreham. And my sister was at Sussex University, but also the boarding school used to have many bus for boarders to come into Brighton for the Saturday.

I think the bus normally left around maybe 11 and they would pick us up at about six to do your shopping, you know, go around town. So that's how I discovered Brighton. And so at that point at age 16, 17, I wasn't actually aware that Brighton was a queer or gay capital. This was 1998, 1999. But because my sister came here and because of the short trips, Saturday trips from Stenning Grammar School, that's how I discovered Brighton, really. Amazing. And it's been home ever since. It's been home ever since, indeed. So Gatto, today we are talking about our wonderful imaginary queer museum. And within this museum, we're going to feature objet d'art, objet from people's lives, anything that you want that you would fit into this beautiful imaginary queer museum.

So what we'd like you to do now is to introduce your first object that you would like to put into our queer museum. So the first object I'd like to introduce into your brilliantly virtual existential queer museum is a tube of pink lipstick in an orange, no, not orange, gold sort of container. The lipstick was gold. And there was YSL. And it was gifted to me by Princess Twinkle Knickers. And it's really quite interesting. This came to me at our preamble before we started talking about, before we actually started the chat this morning, because you said you had interviewed Boogaloo Stew. So immediately, that kind of completely changed what I was hoping to put in the museum, because Boogaloo Stew was instrumental in, I think is actually one of the key figures in how I became Gatto Chocolat, because of the night Dynamite Boogaloo at the Joint,

which is where I went every single Thursday of my university life studying law. So when you said that, it triggered some memories and it triggered this gift from Princess Twinkle Knickers. So tell us a bit about Princess Twinkle Knickers. Who is this person? Right. So Princess Twinkle Knickers was part of the Shinky Shonky Dynamite Boogaloo tribe. So we have, as part of the tribe, we have Dolly Rocket, Boogaloo Stew, Princess Twinkle Knickers, Dynamite Sal, and the Show Ponies. And the Show Ponies are dancers. So every time we had a sort of event, if we had a big event that Dan McBugaloo was offering something, all of us would perform. So we did a couple of nights at Comedia, for instance, and all of us would perform.

So we, most of us, all the other people apart from Princess Knickers lived in Brighton. Princess Knickers lived in London. And she, as part of the troupe, did really sort of elaborate, really brilliant strip teases. And I remember one of the first ones I saw her do was like a 50s housewife was just walking around hoovering. And then she ends up hoovering her clothes off, which is so stupid. Oh, my God. I literally just remember that now. So brilliant. Oh, it was so good. It was so fun because so many things happening at once. You know, I hadn't really seen any sort of stripping or burlesque or sort of cabaret. So to be in a club at 12.30 on a Thursday night, well, now Friday morning, going, what the fuck is going on here?

And for her to then just start hoovering her clothes off was so brilliant. And then she had another one. Oh, my God. I should remember this one. She had another Christmas act where everything she wore were the Christmas decorations. That was the strip. And then right at the very end, she stops and she looks at the train. She goes, huh, huh, something's missing. And she got the Christmas lights out of her fanny and put it on the tree. She sounds very epic. And I know it's not good to indulge in nostalgia, but I'm just wishing she was there. Listen, it was a time when we still smoked in clubs and wore shoes that we knew would get ruined and we would sweat and we would embrace the hedonism and the joy of being.

It was just heaven. So it's changed now. But anyway, so that was that's Princess Pinkle Knickers. Gato, I'm very intrigued about how you end up the movement from being a law student to all of a sudden being in Boogaloo Studios, all dancing, all stripping truth. How did that happen? Well, it was very organically because I went there every single Thursday, every single Thursday for three years, 2000 to 2003. And once Dolly Rocket heard me singing on the dance floor. And I remember the song, actually. It was Madonna's Everybody Come to Hollywood. And Boogaloo Stew then went on holiday and Dolly Rocket asked if I would do the show, the cabaret show with her. And I was like, yeah, sure. So the first time I did it, I was just doing it as a punter.

I was wearing T-shirts and jeans. But then I started doing it a little bit more, a little bit more. She gifted me a black Afro and a gold muumuu that actually the gold, a lot of the gold had robbed off. So that was sort of my first drag. And then came the lipstick that I'm entering into the museum. And the reason why I've chosen that lipstick was because as I kept doing it, going from a punter joining the cabaret troupe, wearing jeans and a T-shirt and then the Afro wig and then the gold muumuu. Because it was never really about drag. It was sort of about a heightening, a performance heightening. So the first piece of drag, I suppose, of makeup to accentuate the heightening or this drag was this tube of lipstick from Princess Twinkle Knickers.

And the reason why it's so important is because we would go on at 12.30 every Thursday at Boogaloo. And they would go and we got dressed in the disabled toilet for audio escape. In those days it was called escape and then it was audio. And we would get dressed in there and there was no space because they also used it as a storeroom. So, you know, like I had Dolly Rockets, Dolly Rockets, massive boobs in my face. And I would have like Boogaloo's chew getting into his thong like by my right ear. So that was the joy of that as well was really, really stupid. But then this tube of lipstick. So let me let me paint you a picture. We're now the show's at 12.30. We're now at 12.15 and we're chatting, we're catching up, whatever.

And they go, Gateau, we're on. We're on in five minutes. I'm like, oh yeah, sure. So get the gold thing out, put it on, get the afro out, put that on and get my only piece of makeup. This tube of lipstick, which I then used the lipstick, blusher and eyeshadow because I do my makeup in 30 seconds. None of this contouring bullshit. Just lipstick on the lips, pink on the cheeks, pink on the eyebrows. And I was ready in 30 seconds. I feel so privileged that we got this story of the origins of Legato Chocolat. I can't tell you how exciting this is. And to just have discovered how you were just picked from the crowd in the middle of a cab. This is just the most exciting story ever in a T-shirt and jeans.

But also the reason why that's actually interesting is it wasn't a thing that I was going to offer. It was David saying that you interviewed Boogaloo Shoe last week. That made me change to this tube of lipstick. It was that that actually triggered that important piece of memorabilia with the lipstick. Which, oh, listen to this, which I lost. Oh, no. I was doing a gig at the Hippodrome. And so I went to the Hippodrome and they told me that they had had a power cut. So everything was cancelled. So I left my stuff on the train. Oh. And the reason I had done that is because when I went to London, there's a whole sort of domino effect if I perform. So you go, I put on the costumes. I always leave the makeup wipes on the side and the box for the lashes.

I pack everything back. And then I get changed. And whilst I'm leaving the building, I can wipe my face. And because that is sort of methodology and process, because I didn't use the makeup and drag that night, I completely forgot about the bag when I got back to Brighton on the night that the gig was cancelled. So I only recognised when I woke up with a start the next day going, fuck. And then I never found it. I never found the stuff. Ritual is so important for performers, though, isn't it? And just having that sense of, like, putting, you know, putting the macoulage on and taking it off. I think it's so part of that. But luckily in our queer museum, we have some magical power and probably a 3D printer.

So we can recreate your lipstick case. My makeup by lipstick. Oh, yes, please. Thank you. Thank you for this story. You too are brilliant. I love it. Thank you.

Gato, thank you so much for that origin story and for that beautiful connection with Bugalusti. I feel very privileged and excited to put the memory of these objects that is unfortunately no longer with you in our imaginary queer museum. So that works just fine. And would you like to tell us what your second object is? Okay. So my second object was going to be one person. But I actually think it's a generation of opera singers, of black women, opera singers who, at the height of their powers, really defied the narrative of what classical music and opera was. Because they were regarded as the leading vocalists of their time and still feature quite heavily. In a way that is so weird in the present in that we don't have that level of black artists operating at the same echelon.

It feels like in the 70s and 80s, we had more black people in opera than we do now. And when I say I don't mean just singers. I mean people who attained the level of global recognition for what they were doing. So these women are Jessie Norman, Leontine Price, Kathleen Battle, Grace Bumbrey, Barbara Hendrix, Shirley Verrett. That's six. And those are the six that I regularly return to. So can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with opera and whether these are people that you kind of grew up with or whether that was more of a kind of adult research journey to kind of locate these reference points for yourself? Again, that's a really good point. I think growing up, I always fancied music.

I always loved it. And I always sort of saw it as a vehicle to express myself. I didn't, I'm not a huge fan of my voice. It's not about singing actually. It's about how I feel that where my personality stops or I don't have enough language to express myself, music can take over. And that's why I'm so interested in music in general, but classical music and opera. I think what's also appealing about that genre of art is I feel like there's also something really transgressive about my performing it because the music doesn't, I feel, doesn't really hold my identity. So it's always a bit of subversion when I choose a piece, even though I'm not, even though that's not my goal, that's not the, what's it called, the currency I'm thinking to exploit.

But that seems to be, whether or not I accept it, that seems to be the case. For instance, being in an opera, Tannhäuser by Wagner two years ago in Bayreuth, which is the tippy top, top most point peak of Wagnerian music. But also a really sort of problematic space because, you know, I remember sitting on stage in one of the rehearsals and going, I wonder if he was ever in this building. And I went upstairs and Googled it. And indeed, Hitler had been in that building because at the time of those, at that time in history, this, that music was the sound, sort of the soundtrack of the movement. Yeah. So how did these women, as I grew from listening to music and wanting to perform that sort of music, I started, I found them as a result of research.

I'm so thankful that people with candid cameras or kind of really old sort of VHS footage made its way onto YouTube because I found in these women a sort of license and permission that said, this music was for me too. And not just because of how they performed, but which was extraordinary. I mean, they are, they are, they were the tip top again of their time. Grace Bunbury is actually an interesting one because Grace Bunbury was 31 years ago, I believe, the first black person to perform in the place I performed in two years ago in Bayreuth. And this is the glorious sort of circle of life moment is it was in the same opera, Tannhäuser. Wow. And she was called Black Venus. And when she was cast, the role she plays is Venus.

When she was cast, Germany and the opera critics and people who, who love this music in Wagner went absolutely insane. Like he would be turning in his grave and, and, and, and the house put out a statement saying, no, no, no, there's no need to worry about it. We're painting her gold. You won't even know. Oh God. And so. Oh God. This is a crazy story. It's a really crazy story. But that, so I really love Grace Bunbury. And then in my research going to Bayreuth, I did, I discovered that, oh, it's that Grace Bunbury whose shoulders I'm standing on. So, but like, what's her name? Leontine Price singing Butterfly. I mean, Madame Butterfly in itself is a really, really problematic opera because most of the time it's performed in Yellow Face.

And it was written by an Italian man who at the time had never actually visited Japan. So there were just really, there really, there, there, lots of problems. The reason why it was, it was, there is a license or a different sort of conversation when you ask a person, a non-white person to play Butterfly. Because then, to a certain degree, you're buying into the theatrical imagination that all of this is make-believe. I think there's a, but she played Butterfly in a time where, in the 70s, which is ludicrous. Because I don't know that there are any, I don't know that I've read or seen any black Butterfly since. So for her to have done it then, you know, in a conversation around racism and how, till today, that opera is still performed with people in Yellow Face, was pretty damn extraordinary.

And the reason why I just offer her as an interesting casting is in the way that, it wasn't Ralph Fiennes, it was Joseph Fiennes. Joseph Fiennes, about five years ago, was cast in this urban myth story as Michael Jackson. I remember, yeah. And now, he was, that is, that was so problematic and it was cancelled, but it was filmed. So, the reason why we got to be part of that discourse is because we saw the pictures of it being filmed, the release, and everyone went, what the fuck do you think you're fucking doing, you bunch of twats? But the interesting thing in the response is, like, it's an urban myth, they were looking to heighten. And I'm like, you know something, that would be interesting if you didn't cast Stockard Channing as Elizabeth Taylor.

Because Stockard looks exactly like Elizabeth Taylor. Now, if you had cast Whoopi Goldberg as Elizabeth Taylor, then I would understand you, there would be license for you to cast Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson. Because we are subverting and we are leaning into the whole thing being ridiculous. But you cast the other two people in the car exactly to type. So, you can take that argument and shower it up. That's right. It's just when it all goes in one direction, isn't it? And you just, it makes you so aware of the power dynamics at play behind culture. Precisely that. Precisely that. When it goes in that one direction, you go, huh, that's really quite interesting, guys. But not interesting enough for me to see the fucking bullshit you're trying to pull.

Yeah. Oh, well, that's, I mean, it's one of those classic things, isn't it? That you kind of can't be it unless you can see it. Absolutely. And it sounds like these, it sounds like these women of the 70s and 80s really kind of, yeah, that sense of standing on the shoulders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of your forebears. Do you have a sense of, do you have a sense of any kind of black renaissance within opera? Do you see any people coming up that you think, oh, these could be the next? I really, I really, really don't. There's one, her name is Priti Yende, and she has been singing in Paris and she's sung at the Opera House and she's sung at the Met. There's Angel Blue, who just did Porgy and Bess. But in terms of anyone who comes, who would come close to what those women did, I don't, I haven't seen any.

But I don't know if that, I don't know if I haven't seen any. But you saying, be what you can see, that was the glorious power and permission and license that they offered, is that by being the best in their field when they were at the peak of their careers, they were not just magnificent performers and singers, but they were also going, also crafting a space going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do this too. Because I think that is where diversity serves its function, is when it becomes representation and you go, oh, so this isn't just entertainment. This is possibility. And I think that that's the power of what the women gave me and I imagine quite a lot of opera singers around the world.

That's absolutely beautiful, Gato. And I'm putting an image of you standing on the shoulders of these wonderful women in our museum. And the brave choice of going into a discipline that's, as you're saying, by default somewhat conservative and part of the establishment and just claiming that space as yours and as your right, because you love it, as your right to do it, even though it's so essentially not. They did this in the 70s, 80s, you know, I just, if I'm thinking about what happened to me in Bayreuth in 2019, she went there in the 70s. Yeah. I mean, Christ. Just the bravery or the kind of resilience to be, to be, to kind of accept or have to accept, I guess, the context that she was working in.

I mean, yeah, just unbelievable. Absolutely. You see, I think that's why I hold them with such great esteem is I know, I know, I know, I know of the shielding and protection and that they would have had to do on their own as they went into some of these buildings. Like, just, oh my God. So to still be able to deliver the quality of what they delivered, knowing that unlike the people that they were sharing the space with, they were fighting battles on so many fronts, not just in the building, but in the public of people going, this really isn't for you. So to begin with, if they were watching Maria Callas, for instance, they go, yes, all we have to go is, is she still good? Can she still sing Violetta from Traviata?

Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person?

Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? Is she still that person? And misogyny, all the things that you would have fought in the 80s. And here you are still standing and delivering exceptional superlative performance is why they are quite important to me. It's black excellence for the ages. Indeed. And that's why it lasts. Indeed, indeed. Truly extraordinary.

Thank you so much, Gato. That's a wonderful entry to our queer museum. So we're going to ask you, I can't believe that time has moved so fast. And we're on your final entry in our queer museum. Please share the entry, the entry Gato. Brilliant. Oh my God, I'm ridiculous. I love it. The, my final entry, again, it wasn't one that I had before I came into the, our chat, but it's one that David prompted by citing Tarek and his plants. And so I am offering you a sort of Jumanji Garden of Eden, Little Shop of Horrors, plants, my plants. I only, so before lockdown, I had three plants, I believe. And once the pandemic hit and the world was different, which was March last year, I really leaned into the power of nature and the importance of nature and the importance of plants.

And how they sort of start, they took on a supernatural life-saving importance because as someone who suffers from poor mental health, I always look for things to take me outside myself. And the plants became that in terms of the husbandry required to keep them alive, to keep them safe, to keep them thriving. So it would mean, it meant that I think we have, I don't know, maybe 50 now. And what looking at seeing one brown leaf and literally panicking like, Oh my God. Okay. Go on. You Google search. Who can I call? Should I call the police? Um, who can I, Oh my God, RuPaul? Um, no, Angela Lansbury. Oh, Disney, is anyone going to save me? How am I going to do this? That level of, um, panic related to, um, this, these wonderful things that, um, are kind of why our, um, our planet is here.

You know, they are life-giving in that, that really, really, um, intricate and important, um, uh, relationship that we have with our plants in that they absorb carbon dioxide and they release oxygen. Like that fucking hell. That is just, that is such a ridiculous thing. Like in whoever designed this was like, yeah, I'm going to make you do that. That's going to be your function. And I think that that's so, I find, I, I often find magic in the science. Like that is so incredible. So the rewilding of your living room. That's a great project. And, and I'm interested in this love for plants because it's something I think loads of people have rediscovered during the pandemic. And, and as queers are such, we are such urban creatures, you know, from a young age, we're told that we need to like all gather in the cities where we can find our, our tribes.

And, and we lose so much in that process. We lose, we lose that relationship with nature often, or we never learn it. So it's, that's really beautiful to remind, to remind ourselves and remind others in our community that, that nature is, is life saving in more than one way. Absolutely. And we have a right to it. Yeah. The rewilding, rewilding is such a great way to, to, to frame it is precisely what it is. But I think I like the rewilding of just how I, how, what that conjures up in terms of our relationship with them. There isn't, there is no request, there is no request, um, that is taxing. It is just a joy of, um, sharing. And as you said, do you have a right to it? And so there's just an ease of access, um, in the relationship that you can be, you can build with them.

Do you, do you find that, um, certain plants kind of transport you back to different time and place? Do you have relationship? Cause for a lot of the time I have a sign of, I do have a lot of plants, but I have a problematic relationship with them in that I'm probably a slightly neglectful parent. And I think it's more reflective of the ability, my ability to care for myself. But like the thing, the time I have is like, I've got associations. I think there were things like there's a money tree that I remember being in my grandmother's, uh, living room and her flat was always incredibly hot. It was just like, it's like little parched money tree. But I just have these associations, I think with key.

And my mum is a keeper of orchids. Oh my God. I don't know when she started doing it, but she loves like, her bathroom is like full of orchids. And there's this, this, this, a certain species and I guess sort of genus of plants. I just kind of think, Oh yeah, that connects me to that thing or that thing. Yeah. So there was one, I don't have it and I couldn't have it. No one could. But I remember going into the botanical gardens in Sydney and there is a pans labyrinth sort of tree that is on its side. And listen, I literally, it literally, my God, I've got goosebumps. It literally took my breath away because the trunk, the trunk is literally like, was literally the size of a, of a room. The trunk was so, I was completely blown away.

Anyway, I think, well, Australia is blessed with quite extraordinary flora and fauna. And that tree was really, really, really made me stop. Like I had to have a moment and walk around it. Like, how is this thing? This is so, that was pretty special. In terms of what I have in here, there are, so we had three trailing, trailing plants. And one of them that used to flower quite beautifully didn't survive the beast of the East winter that we had three years ago. My sister was coming in, because I was away in Australia, my sister was coming in to Waterman Weekly. And she sent me a message. And it was like, she sent me a message. And when my sister and I chat, or she leaves me a voice note, we immediately revert back to Nigerian.

And she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message. And she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message. And she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message. And she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message, and she sent me a message. And I had to have that relationship with the trailing plants, because we lost one of them, even though my sister tried all she could to say this.

It was just, it got too cold. And interestingly, it was the one that was most robust before. It just used to, it was just everywhere, this red, beautiful, kind of almost hibiscus-type flowers. And then it died, because it got too cold, even though my sister tried to save it. I mean, the lovely thing is you can always get another plant, as much as you have those emotional connections. I think there's something forgiving about plant caring, is that you know that you can, yeah. And I think there's something inherently queer that you're talking about, like the mycelial network. It's like, we're told that society has to function one way, and you're like, no, wait a minute. Nature is all about this kind of collectivist gossip network of plants.

And that is what is, that is how society should be organized, in my view. I, I, but also I think there is just, I really love, I remember reading about the mycelial network and going, fuck you, clever bastards. Like, we think that, we think it's something happening on the, on the top. And just because of your offering now, even though I hadn't necessarily made that connection, is you think that this is what it is. But we, the underground, exist and function in a completely different way. So, Amen. Amen to that. Amen to that. So, and what I love about the secrecy of that is, if you aren't necessarily part of the network, you might know that it exists, or how it functions, or what the function of that is.

And I quite like that about how the underground has our chosen vocabulary, or how we perform, in terms of how we survive as well, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And just the sense of like, paying attention and kind of, or kind of being welcomed into the tribe, I guess, and just like learning the, yeah, just learning how that, how, anyway. Yeah, completely. Well, I'm very privileged to, to welcome you into the Legato Chocolat Arboretum wing of the museum. Oh, brilliant. Thanks for, thanks for, thanks for inviting me. It was just being, and it's so interesting that, two of the things I offered were literally from the preamble before we started recording. Literally, because I had planned.

What can I say? I know. I'm an inspiration. Just out of sheer curiosity, what are the two objects you didn't give us today because you swapped them round? Yes. So, one of it was, one of them was a book, the color purple. Oh. And the other was fashion. And the reason why fashion was quite an interesting one, from what Gato wears and how that functioned to the expressing of my identity when I'm not Gato either. fashion became, or had become quite an intricate, sort of Tetris building of part of my identity. So, yeah, it was going to be quite a detailed conversation about fashion and the book color purple. Next time. Well, if our museum, seeing as it's imaginary, gets big enough, you know, we might, yeah, we'll get into five objects.

Great, great, great, great, great. You can have a wing. Gato, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. It's been fascinating and fun and just beautiful. My pleasure. I'm, David, thanks so much for sending the email. And I remember, because I'm an insomniac, I sometimes read things in the liminal space, like when I'm in the middle of the night, but my brain then ticks them off like, oh, yeah, I've done that. Until I remember that I hadn't responded to the email. Better late than never. Yes. And it's always good to speak to you, Gato. So, a real, real delight. So, thank you so much. Thank you. And lots of love. And we look forward to seeing you in the live space very soon. Absolutely.

Amen to that. Take care, guys.

We played Gato's interview to our resident queer museum curator, EJ Scott. And this is what EJ had to say. Well, wasn't it fantastic to be taken on a journey into Gato's own queer performance trajectory? Because, of course, they're an internationally renowned performer now, like a proper globe-trotter. And certainly when I've seen them perform, I'm always blown away, not only by their, like, truly astonishing skills and their talent, but by the way they really mesh queerness into the audience's experience of seeing them. I mean, they're just huge on stage. They're really in touch with their own sexiness and their body. And they have this presence that's entirely captivating. And so, Ron, I found it really very moving, their interview.

I guess it meant a lot to me as a local member of the community to find out just how big a role the local Brighton queer scene played in their performance trajectory. I mean, they were literally a law student at Sussex Uni one minute and on Boogaloo's G's Troop the next. And it was so lovely, right? That is the most incredible part of the interview to me as well. It's like queer performance in the making born out of being a member of the audience. Yeah. It's just incredible. And we were just talking to Stu as well, you know. It feels like it really sort of brings home how tight-knit our queer Brighton community is and how our experiences really feed off each other. I don't know if you felt the same way, but I was really struck by it.

It's like the most beautiful synergy, that part of the story is just, yeah, it's just what communities should do. It's like we uplift each other and we bring out the best in one another, even bits of ourselves that we didn't know were there. Yeah. And I think it really sort of goes to show how important our queer spaces are to finding ourselves amongst our friends and like how lucky we are that our queer culture is so vibrant. You don't necessarily have that natural community trajectory to the arts and your people in the same way in the straight world. But I guess I was also thinking about everything Gatto said about the inherent racism in the fine arts scene and the long history of that, like when they were speaking about the ongoing prevalence of yellow facing in Madame Black Butterfly and the importance of Leon Tim Price's Black Butterfly.

Grace Bunbury's Bravery performing a Wagnerian Black Venus in the extremely white 1961 Beirut German Opera Music Festival. Do you know, she was only 24 years old when she performed at that festival. So it was an extraordinarily brave thing to do. And I think it reminded me of how mindful we need to be of not over romanticising our performance culture scene and the ongoing necessity to sort of keep addressing the white privilege in the broader queer art scene too. It's part for me of a much wider conversation, not only about the gentrification, having a huge impact on our access to queer performance spaces. You know, Roni, how difficult it is to find the news in Brighton, right? And what Tranfrau's been through and what, you know, Marble Productions went through and how hard it's been to keep forging ahead.

So I think that's one side of the conversation is this gentrification and the impact it can have. But I think there's actually a really big conversation that's starting to happen surrounding the globalisation of LGBT culture and the way in which actually cities around the world, not just Brighton, but Brighton is an absolute case study for it, are increasingly being measured for their modernity and their progressiveness by an LGBT yardstick. So gay rights make the news around the world nowadays, right? From protests in Poland and same-sex marriage laws being passed in Uruguay in 2013 and the Sochi Games in Russia and any trans protests in LA just this weekend and so on and so on. And so there's some new thinking, well, some amazing thinking anyway, being done about how sexualities are used to measure progress in a city.

So that's where we come from with Brighton, this idea that Brighton's this great place to live if you're queer and da-da-da. When in actual fact, a lot of these ideas are tightly linked to gender and homonormativity, right? To whiteness, to gentrified middle-class ideas of gayness and areas in the city that support that. And if anyone's interested in thinking more about this, there's a fantastic article by an author called Natalie Oswin and the article's called World City Queer. And it's well worth a read because it points out that this globalised LGB culture actually writes out sex radicals and it writes out red-light districts and it favours, you know, Western ideas of whiteness and this Western frame of gender and sexual sort of alternative of sexualities that homonormify all of us.

So I think what Gatot has reminded us all is the importance of constantly keeping our eyes open to roadblocks, to broader forms of expression that are brave and transgressive and powerful and challenge the elite, be it based in the arts or in race or in homo or gender normativity, and that it can actually threaten the viability and creativity of our own queer spaces and the vibrancy of our own radical communities if we don't keep our eye on this all the time. Absolutely. It's like the bourgeois and homonormativity of pink washing, isn't it? Absolutely. And that's really where it spoke to me, this sort of this bigger idea about how this manifests here in Brighton and then spreads out right across the world.

It was a really powerful interview. I'm so grateful to them for it. Same. Thank you so much, EJ. It's always a pleasure to have you with us. And I will check out that article. I'm very interested. Thank you. The My Queer Museum podcast is a Queer Heritage South, Queer and Brighton project created by Marlborough Productions and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. For more information about our work, visit www.queerheritagesouth.co.uk. Original music and editing by Olive Mondegreen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.