F E S T I VA L C A B A R E T | Alfi e Ordinary ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS FABULOUS FABULOUS
An exciting crossover of clown and queen, Alfi e Ordinary is set to take the Fringe by storm. Arusa Qureshi fi nds an act who is tapping into drag’s race for the mainstream
F or many artists and creatives currently producing work and performing to audiences around the world, it’s impossible not to see certain artforms as escapism. For Brighton-based drag queen Alfi e Ordinary, the idea of freedom and insistence on joy has been a key tenet of his award-winning show Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous, which challenges everything from homophobia to toxic masculinity, all while celebrating who we are inside.
Having taken it to festivals across the globe, Alfi e brings the show to Edinburgh for the fi rst time, introducing the city to his affable and charming creation, and the story of his life at Madame LeCoq’s Prep School for Fabulous Boys. ‘I wanted to make a drag character that didn’t fi t in with a community,’ he explains. ‘There are drag queens and there are drag kings, but I wanted to create something that was a little bit off to the side of those. You’d hear all the songs I do at a drag show but they’re pulled from Alfi e’s perspective. So it’s as if all of his clothes have been made by his mum, all of his friends are from his mum, and it’s like he’s grown up purely through drag. He’s having a wonderful camp old time!’
With his sequined pantaloons and blonde bowl cut, Alfi e Ordinary is not your average drag queen, despite what his name might suggest. In fact, he’s not a drag queen at all, but a drag prince: the son of a drag queen who, as he proclaims, ‘identifi es as one thing and one thing only, and that’s goddamn fabulous!’ The character was born through a mix of academic research and a love for
cabaret that was discovered early. ‘I sort of dived into the cabaret world,’ he notes. ‘At the same time, I was studying a masters degree at the University of Chichester where I was looking at how drag is a sort of queer expression and how clowning deals with otherness. That’s how I ended up with the character of Alfi e Ordinary, where he’s a kind of nice crossover of clown and drag queen.’
While funny and fabulous in equal measure, Help! sets out to portray a message of acceptance, inspired by Alfi e’s own journey. ‘I wrote it about my experiences of growing up gay but I sort of stripped it back into not being specifi cally about that. I wanted to address the feeling of being different in a much more general way. And what I’ve found is that I get people of all backgrounds and ages, and with different stories coming to the show and taking different things away from it. It’s a really fun show to perform and the audience can get involved. Everyone’s playing and singing along and hopefully feeling empowered at the end.’ Alfi e’s Fringe debut comes at a time where drag has fi rmly cemented itself as a dominant force in popular culture, with new scenes and queens popping up all the time. But Alfi e remains positive about the future of drag and its ongoing impact on the everyday.
‘We’re seeing so many different types of drag, and people not being afraid to just go ahead and give things a try,’ he says, ‘which is wonderful because that’s what drag is all about; it’s two fi ngers up to society and society’s norms. It’s amazing the power that drag has to communicate to everyone. Drag is not just for the LGBT community; everyone’s getting a good dose of it and enjoying it. I think it speaks to people when they see someone up on stage being an extravagant and happy version of themselves.’
Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous, Gilded Balloon Rose Theatre, 3–25 Aug, 6pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 31 Jul–2 Aug, £6.
40 THE LIST FESTIVAL 31 Jul–7 Aug 2019