Put Your Best Fruit Forward!

Jason Reid meets cabaret’s juiciest new star, Fruit!


Conceived at Micheal Twaits’ Art of Drag course, Fruit is the creation of Stevie Doherty. They’ve been shaking their bananas and spreading joy on the London cabaret scene for just over a year now, highlights of which include performing as part of Haus of Royalz and alongside David Hoyle.

Jason Reid spoke to Stevie this week about how Fruit came to be, provocativeness in art, the future and more…


You’ve just passed the one year mark performing as a drag aartist. How would you sum that first year up?

It’s been life-changing. I’ve discovered more about myself, as a person and as a performer, than I ever thought I would. I’ve always enjoyed being on stage throughout my life but I’ve never felt more alive and more myself than I do as Fruit.

Do you remember what you were expecting and how you were feeling when you first performed as Fruit and how that compares with where you are now? 

My first performance as Fruit was with Haus of Royalz on their night at the RVT. I was extremely nervous as I knew my act was unusual but I hoped the audience would be open-minded. It went well, and I got such a buzz from it that I nearly passed out when I left the stage. Now, I feel I’m much more at home as Fruit. I know how to work with an audience and trust myself to do a good job in entertaining them. It’s all for them! 

What draws me, and I imagine many others, to Fruit is the uniqueness and absurdity, which I think is an integral element if you want to stand out from what is now a very large crowd of drag performers. So, it only took me two questions to ask: why the fruit theme?

The idea for Fruit initially came from my love of 80s music. One of my favourite songs growing up was “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” by Jermaine Stewart. I was working on a version of this which I thought I’d do as a masc drag king which is what I was used to from when I was in boiband Northstar. But I remembered singing ‘banana-nananana-nana’ along to the song when I was a kid so I thought I’d stick a banana down my pants. Fruit grew from there and became less masc, more camp, and the comedy came from me mucking up my material and making a joke out of it, but audiences seemed to find me funny so I worked on making my performances as ridiculous as possible. 

Would you say Fruit is provocative? And do you think that is a necessity in art sometimes? 

I don’t find what I do provocative but I can see how others might. I think it’s important to be memorable and original if you want to get any message across through performance. My focus is always on entertaining an audience but if I can help raise awareness or challenge opinions through what I’m doing then I think it’s important that I take those opportunities. I try to at least mention that I’m autistic during performances to challenge what most people think about autism.

In your mind, why do you think there’s still a resistance to female, non-binary and trans artists in some quarters? 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: misogyny. The LGBTQIA+ community and scene can appear and feel like it’s all about the G. RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants are held up as an ideal by many; anyone outside of that ‘type’ meets with resistance. Things are changing but they would change more quickly and with less struggle if those with privilege worked harder at it and I include myself in that category of needing to do more for diversity. 

If Fruit had to do a double act with someone on the London scene who would it be and why?

There are so many people I’d love to work with! I think for pure foolish fun, visual comedy and lack of inhibitions, I’d do an act with Oedipussi. 

What is drag in 2018? 

It’s a beautiful buffet table with a little too much meat on it but there’s a whole load of gorgeous, varied and unusual dishes being added to the table every day, including a big, tasty fruit salad (that’s me…in case it wasn’t obvious).

What’s next for you and Fruit?

I’ve got some very exciting things coming up! I can exclusively reveal that I’ll be performing at Underbelly Festival on 24th July in the Speigeltent with Michael Twaits’ The Art Of Drag. I’ll also be competing in Drag Idol and Brighton’s Big Drag Pageant on 30th May. I’m always making new acts so who knows what you might see. 

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