Was David Bowie a god? The Second Cumming of a pansexual Jesus, or a fabulously indiscriminate tart shagging any available orifice?
BY SASHA SELAVIE
Whatever your take on Bowie, the hysterical grief provoked by his death made Britain’s mass weeping for Princess Diana seem as insignificant as the Seven Dwarves mourning Snow White!
But let’s get a sense of proportion here. No, one lick of Bowie’s dick wouldn’t make you instantly immortal – though it might, arguably, be a taste of Heaven! – but Bowie, undeniably, had genius. That, however, never stopped him being a ruthless opportunist and backstabbing bitch whenever useful. Sure, many right-on revisionists claim Bowie as a Wilde-style, gay martyr, but let’s never forget both Bowie’s later, gay denials and shameless, fascist flirtation. Remember, every idol, quite simply, remains fallible, and to quote camp classic ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’, Bowie was ‘just a man’.
And nobody knew fledgling, boy-genius Bowie – pop’s very own Harry Potter? – better than Lindsay Kemp, England’s most astounding theatre visionary and crucially, Bowie’s mentor. The patron saint of sacramental spunk and shamelessness, Kemp’s string of savagely beautiful shows – Salome, Flowers, The Big Parade and more – permanently gender-f*cked British theatre. Think Jean Genet’s criminally sexual prose gloriously buggered by Grimm’s fairy tales, and, instantly, you’ll get teenage Bowie’s burning need to cruise, use and abuse Lindsay. Like Lady Gaga – another world-famous, cultural vampire – Bowie wanted Lindsay’s bewitching, alien sense of beauty at any price.
Which brings us to tonight’s historically important show – host Marc Almond interviewing Lindsay Kemp on his first trip to London since 2002. The Ace Hotel, understandably, is packed as tight and panting as sex on crack and Viagra, as ginger-gingham-suited Ernesto Tomasini’s falsetto take on ‘Starman’ begins. A show-stopping entrée, certainly, but the mass audience grin as Lindsay enters is radiantly mirrored by an adoring Marc Almond, himself hugely inspired by Kemp.
More instantly seductive than GHB, Lindsay’s immense, saucer-pool eyes and cosseting drawl instantly captivate complete attention. He’s shocked at the changes in London – ‘I ventured into Soho, it’s very dull, they’ve ripped out the wickedness’ – and makes one immediately regret no longer skidding on pools of random spunk. But even nearly fifty years on, he remembers meeting Bowie at Brian Epstein’s studio; ‘The door opened and the archangel Gabriel appeared’. ‘He expressed his desire to study under me immediately’ Lindsay continues, ‘but I didn’t fall on my knees until a couple of days later…’
Lindsay, then, lived in Soho’s Bateman’s Buildings – ‘David came there often’, he smirks – but the artistic bliss soon soured. On tour, Bowie shagged a female, Kemp company member, breaking Lindsay’s heart, before ‘screwing another love of his life –for all of two weeks’. No wonder Lindsay scratched his wrists in mock-suicidal despair and the girl attempted an overdose – ‘she was revived by a fireman, lucky cow!’- but inadvertently, Lindsay inspired Bowie’s greatest, artistic triumph – Ziggy Stardust.
Ingratitude, however, never dies, and despite plotting, conceiving and designing the Ziggy shows, Lindsay was barely mentioned in 2013’s landmark David Bowie Is…exhibition. Sure, Bowie donated 500 dollars to Lindsay after Ziggy’s success – ‘Which might have been a lot, back in 1938!’- but also, kept him waiting for three hours when they last met during 1987’s Glass Spider tour.
`Still – speaking charitably – Bowie’s barely a footnote in Lindsay’s incomparably innovative career. Tonight, adored by a glittering host of gay celebrities, Lindsay remains the undisputed Queen of gorgeous excess, stunningly serenaded by Marc Almond’s ‘Amsterdam’ and ‘Starman’. This, darlings, is one night Bowie can’t steal from his master!
• Got surgically-urgent, arts and theatre news? [email protected].
