REVIEW: Alternative Miss World 2018

RATING: *****
Words by Dylan B Jones
Photo by Holly Revell

One of the best lines in Tina Fey’s genius noughties sitcom 30 Rock, is when Elizabeth Banks’s discerning newsreader character observes “you know it’s a great event when it feels like a Batman villain’s about to attack”.

Nowhere has that line applied more than at the Alternative Miss World contest, which breezed, bounced and bristled its way into Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on Saturday night.

On paper, it’s a beauty pageant, but in reality, it’s so much more. Artist, sculptor and performer Andrew Logan dreamt it up in 1972, and it’s been legendary ever since.

Andrew’s known for having a massive influence on the work of Derek Jarman, as well as iconic sculptures displayed everywhere from airports and hospitals to museums and private collections. His jewellery too is notorious around the world, known for its ostentatious, deliberately brash style. “It’s absolutely hideous isn’t it” said one gallery owner to me in the foyer, brandishing a huge, lurid ring. “Horrid! Don’t you just LOVE it!”

Andrew is part of an iconic and quintessentially London set of artists, creatives, libertines. The judging panel for the night included fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, and the ubiquitous and wonderful Grayson Perry. Rula Lenska weaved through the crowd with a white wine, wearing a demure suit.

They’re of a sixties youth generation of kaleidoscopic liberation and hallucinogenic, brain-bending freedom, and the theme for the night reflected that – Psychedelic Peace was the aesthetic the contestants were asked to capture in their many and mad outfits.

There was no interval, but spectators were free to come and go as they pleased, popping in and out to smoke cigarettes (or often a certain something else that’s recently been legalised in Canada). It was a refreshing middle finger in the air to theatre’s stuffy tradition of formality. Made all the more fitting by its setting at Shakespeare’s Globe, an homage to a time when theatre was less about riffling programs and more about hurling tomatoes. Down in the pits, far from standing staunchly, the audience was partying and drinking throughout the show, looking just as joyful and excited as the contestants themselves.

It made for a beautifully senseless melding of thriftless thespianism and space age surrealism. Luc Besson’s Fifth Element meets A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Andrew Logan’s grand introduction of the judges, who peered down, regally nodding and waving from the upper stands in a series of star-spattered outfits, was more like an intergalactic summit than a show on the South Bank.

It soon became apparent, that in rather British tradition, it wasn’t necessarily the winning that counted, it was the taking part. The contestants varied from the sublime to the ridiculous, and everyone had something different to offer. There were several moments of utter chaos, where the stage descended into beautiful, butterfly-winged madness.

But even at its most frenetic, frazzled moments, one thing was certain – everyone was smiling. Andrew Logan laughed his way through proceedings with such unbridled, authentic joy, that it was impossible not to be carried be away with him. We could all learn from that. If all else fails, pin a balloon to your head, slap on some neon face paint, and jump down the rabbit hole.

London is a glittering treasure chest, overflowing at every sway of the ship, with star studded events, diverting people, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, flashing camera bulbs, unforgettable one-night stands.

But Alternative Miss World, even by London’s priceless standards, is a step above. If London’s usual events are in the treasure chest, then Alternative Miss World is the jewel in a sparkling, burnished, gold crown. Worn with cyclone-defeating, wave-parting gusto by Calypso, goddess of the sea (contestant number 25).

Find out more about Andrew Logan and Alternative Miss World at alternativemissworld.co.uk

 

 

 

 

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