Think radical queer politics and you might get images of Stonewall, anti-Section 28 protests, or support for striking miners. But live artist and director Scottee’s ‘Putting Words into Your Mouth’ unearths a more surprising subset of gay radicalism: the white gay men who came of age in a time of leftwing protest, but are turning to UKIP in their thousands. Three black performers lip sync to recorded interviews with these frank, witty, conflicted voices. The result is that rarest thing, a political performance that feels like it’s in direct conversation with the world outside.
Hearing these stories is deeply uncomfortable, like being a lobster in water that’s slowly heating up to a boil. Cosy childhood coming out memories turn into a simmer of rage against the migrant communities these men blame for homophobic violence. One man’s sensible-sounding feelings –that Blackpool was the safest place to wear drag – became more and more unsettling, as he explained that Birmingham’s Muslim community made him unsafe. Another man’s voice swelled with emotion as he hailed Maggie Thatcher as a style icon, while a board with 28 daubed on it next to him acted as a mute reminder of her anti-gay laws.
This undercurrent of visual protest fills the piece: David Curtis-Ring’s set design involves billboard-sized canvases that the three performers cover in painted protests. Lasana Shabazz, Travis Alabanza and Jamal Gerald are brilliantly unsettling to watch, as they contort their faces to match unaccustomed sounds: a Brummie hum or an extravagantly plummy drawl. Sometimes, they react with extravagant disgust to the words they’re miming to, or carefully hold each other. But at others, they’re deadpan, highlighting how easy it is from people on all sides of the political spectrum to slip from, say, concern about arranged marriage to prejudice against Asian communities.
Because this problem goes deep: views like these aren’t limited to disenfranchised, lonely, working class gays in small towns. They’re on the rise, post-Brexit, influential in LGBT movements, and are given an airing at any number of gay pubs on a Friday night – while black queer voices are almost never heard.
It felt like a pressure valve had been released when the three cast members spoke with their own voices. ‘I didn’t know what it was like to experience racism until I came out as gay’, said one. I wish there’d been more of their words to cut through the mess - but maybe that would give us a sense of resolution we haven’t earned, yet.