After the presentation during the Sully Night event Lavinia Co-op left with us a collection of precious images of the Drag Company Bloolips. It has been really a privilege to listen the stories and gossip of the company from an insider…
“It wasn’t about being women, it was about being gay men in frocks’. ‘We were looking for a new kind of gay man. Hitting out at the far right, especially the religious right’. (Bette Bourne) ‘A good chance to dress up and do something silly’.” (Lavinia Co-op)
‘One of the best things in my life really. Deep down I knew this was right. With all the drama and the arguments and problems with getting it on…I could see…this was a whole big thing for me, that opened up a whole area of me…I was a dancer so I learnt to act, and I learnt to act in comedy,…musical comedy. I learnt to make props, make costume, learnt do stage hand, find out about lights, the whole thing. It was major.’ (Lavinia Co-op)
‘It was a great place for me to come out, and be gay, and stand on a stage and be myself. I might not have worked as a straight actor or as a straight dancer, but because I had that push and a group of people, I could now be myself, whatever it was, without necessarily being camp, being yourself, true to yourself, not acting gay…The other one is working with people consecutively over years and years, and years, was also rare…where you had a company and they knew each other and they could really grow and work well. Whereas when you’re doing commercial theatre you just have to walk in do it and leave…You’re not growing with someone…That was the collective, shared, collaborative…ensemble…That was the big thing, and being able to be out, and be out for people, and you weren’t necessarily ‘being gay’, doing the stereotypical thing.’ (Lavinia Co-op)
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