THE BITCH IS BACK

Queen of New York’s underground since the 1970s, Penny Arcade is returning to London with her show Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! David McGillivray met her…

Penny Arcade is a stand-up comic with a difference. What separates her from the rest is that she mostly attacks the American right wing and its censorship, racism and homophobia. She first brought her show Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! to London in 1993. It’s a series of monologues interspersed with erotic go-go dancing. I think Penny’s very funny. But not everyone agrees. Last year at the RVT her audience nearly turned nasty. She was as talkative as ever when she met me in a café in Fitzrovia.

I hear you’ve been auditioning dancers!

Yes, for hours. Hours and hours. You would have loved it. There were some amazing dancers. And it’s very funny. The last time I was looking for dancers in London in 1993 there were none to be found.

What do you make of that? What’s happened in the intervening 19 years?

Well, what’s happened is the whole pro-sex movement that I was part of that came on the back of the AIDS epidemic. Some of us were just not going to be cowed by society’s vindictive judgment. B!D!F!W! was at that time a rallying call against the fundamentalist right wing Christians as well as the politically correct gay middle class community that did not want to be associated with anything risqué.

Tell us about your philosophy.

I believe in a queer aristocracy, people who have very high standards. But I’m inclusive. There are heterosexuals who marched for gay rights 40 years ago when many people who were gay couldn’t march because they would have been fired from their jobs.

Some of the things you say have been known to clear a room.

Some younger gay people just think I’m a bitch.

I’m thinking of the night you were interviewed by Scott Capurro at the RVT. Do you remember that?

Well, I’m trying to remember. Was that the night when I said that my audience doesn’t have the attention span of three Lady GaGa videos?

Yes, that’s right. Why do you say things like that?

Because it’s true.

Well it’s not true of all of us.

No, but the thing was the people were angry with me because they were fanatical fans of Lady GaGa. But she lived next door to me and I watched her for four years before she became famous. Never was she in an outrageous outfit, never was she in a queer club. It’s all marketed… (continues in this vein for some time).

All right, but we want to talk about you, Penny, rather than dissing other people…

But this is not about dissing, this is about a gay world of young people many of whom don’t know what was going on ten years ago, never mind 40 years ago, and their belief that things cannot go backwards. So when I say – let me just finish this – the attention span of three Lady GaGa videos I mean people who don’t read, people who are self-absorbed. David Hoyle says the same things as me except he’s not making everybody angry…

Well…

Do you think it’s because I’m a female?

The most important thing is that in the end you won the audience round…

I won them over!

So now let’s talk…

But let’s say why. I won them over because I said Lady GaGa steals everything from Leigh Bowery and never acknowledges him. I said, “Where is your loyalty to Leigh Bowery?” And they stopped booing and they became silent because I smashed them between two icons!

This is why we love you. Now let’s talk about the show… 

I’m talking about personal freedom and responsibility and that in order to have the life you want you have to create it. There’s nothing in society that supports individuality. I’m a huge believer in the power of the individual. And I am a bitch and I’m willing to be thought of as bitchy in order to tell my truth. If people feel supported by my values they adore me and they think I’m a genius. If they feel criticised then they hate me.

What do you think the reaction’s going to be this time round?

We go to the theatre to experience that which we’re either unable or unwilling to experience in the real world. I create transformational theatre. There will be a transformation in that room every night for everybody.

You promise?

I promise. It’s gonna be so much fun!

 

• Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! runs at the Arcola Tent, 2 Ashwin Street, E8, from 27th June to 22nd July, Wed-Sun only. Box-office: 020 7503 1646 or www.arcolatheatre.com

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