Lockdown's a Drag

“I need to go lay down in a dark room”, I said to my friend over eggs in March, Fingers rubbing my temples and peeling old eyelash glue off from the night before, a very faint line of makeup around my face from not being washed properly before collapsing into bed, still smelling like sweat and cheap perfume.

I had done three gigs that week, singing cabaret in gay bars, drinking with the audience and friends, and having people laugh at my jokes on stage. The night beforehand I had been the entertainment for a bear gig at a BDSM club. The night was filled with smiling sweaty faces while I sang on a stripper pole in thigh high boots before the headline stripper came out, finishing the gig at around 3 am to a chorus of “MORE”.

The night had been like any other gig, full of people we know from the scene, far too many complimentary cocktails, and me drunkenly packing my costume into a wheely bag before kissing everyone goodbye and pouring myself giggling into a cab home.

I was done that Sunday morning, all I wanted was to finish my eggs at our local hole in the wall cafe up a thousand flights of stairs in Brighton, go home and take a bath hot enough to boil a lobster. We knew the pandemic was coming the night before, but we could have never guessed that having a nice lie down would be basically the aim of the game for the next 8 weeks and counting, as a matter of global safety.

On the drag and cabaret circuit people are our lives. We do what we do to make people happy, to have a crowd in uproar at a joke or a favourite song is our natural drug. We see each other at least three times a week, I often bar hop on my way back from a show to see who's still going, and have a drink with another equally exhausted but happy performer.

We are in so many ways a family, and even though we have taken our shows online, sweating through my sequins and furiously clapping at someone else's show, or having someone do it at mine is something that is almost too painful to think about, every performers eyes through a screen say, “I miss you all”.

When performing is your life your schedule is most unholy. Getting up at 2 in the afternoon and putting on a fresh face of makeup ready to go on at 11 is normal. I find myself in a sort of uncomfortable version of domestication. Baking banana bread and learning to grow my own tomatoes was not something I was ready for for at least another 5 years.

Yes we've learnt a lot in isolation, yes we've become masters of the side hustle and Mari Kondoing but my God I miss professional hedonism. I miss going too fast, I miss feeling awful in the morning knowing I've given the stage all I've got.

I'm already thinking of ways to make shows safe. I want to listen to bad jokes again and tell my own, I want nothing more than to drink bad bar wine and belt out 80’s songs to a couldn't-care-less-about-work-tomorrow crowd. The first thing I'll be doing isn't visiting my biological family, it'll be visiting my chosen family and planning our new normal.

Some of our bars have already closed, the places that have seen awards ceremonies, dramas, charity events and the greatest shows. The special thing about the gay community however is that they rally. I know that when we come out of this there will be so many tears and so much laughter, that out of it we will slowly create something more spectacular than before.

Currently I have not touched another human in 8 weeks. I hadn't realised how physical I was as a person until now, I miss being leaned on and talk-shouted at over music, which is something I never thought I’d say, but I know it's coming back. I can feel things in the air moving, and the wonderful thing about it all is, I have so many people in my chosen family that I love, I don't know who I’ll kiss first, I insist on being covered in as much glittery lipstick as possible.