‘The Butch is Back!’ Cabaret and comedy sensation Reuben Kaye comes to Bristol

By any measure, the multi-award-winning Reuben Kaye is a sensation.

Straddling cabaret, stand-up and gig, and backed by a full band, his performance style is hard to quantify, though it patently hits audiences like a freight train.

Selling out solo shows in Australia, Europe and the UK – as well as hosting his late night queer cabaret, The Kaye Hole, his distinctive drag eyes gaze out from posters festooned with five star reviews.

Now on tour with The Butch is Back!, Kaye comes to Bristol’s 1532 Performing Arts Centre on November 3. He told Bristol24/7 a bit more about his persona, his inspirations, and how it all comes together in the moment:

Your shows blur the boundary between comedy and cabaret, as well as blending the political with the personal; the hilarious with the often very moving – is this a deliberate structural decision, or is it more organic? How do they take shape?

“In an era where we are bombarded everyday by multiple stimuli like Tiktok, pop up ads, social media it only made sense that my shows deliver the message on multiple levels simultaneously. It might be society or it might be my inability to focus on anything for long enough, or it might be that the world is about to end. Either way – it seems to be working for me! I also think the contrast between the two makes for a tighter, more exciting ride for the audience. You never know what’s gonna come next.”

How would you define the differences between Reuben Kaye on, and off stage? What does performing unlock for you?

“I haven’t even broached that question with my therapist. I think me onstage is, in many ways, the me I couldn’t be when I was younger. Stronger, faster, bolder, drunker. Happier even. It lets me release all the stress I have but it also gives me an avenue for all the laughter, joy and optimism that perhaps you don’t get on a train carriage reading the Metro and trying not to cry. But hey, that’s just me.”

What do you want to instil in your audiences when they come to see you? Do you like surprising people?

“I want them to leave my shows invigorated. Excited, and sore from laughing. They can be sore from other things as well but that’s totally up to them and we’d have to arrange a safeword. (Also my management would have to take 10 per cent of whatever fee we negotiate).”

As a lover of the arts, who first inspired you to follow the path yourself, and which acts excite you today?

“I’m hopeless at everything else. I have legitimately been fired from every job I’ve ever had that wasn’t on a stage. So it wasn’t a choice or a calling, it was a last resort!

“And now the acts that excite me are the acts that surprise me. You get jaded in this industry but when an act surprises me, shocks me, shakes me out of my stupor then I’m on the edge of my seat. I think we’re all a bit like that now. We’ve had such a glut of exposure that when something new hits us we get tingles in all the right places. Our pupils dilate and we get a shot of adrenaline. Kind of like when you forget you’ve got a love bullet in and you accidentally sit on the controller.”

Reuben Kaye: The Butch is Back! is at 1532 Performing Arts Centre on November 3 at 8pm. Tickets are available at www.reubenkaye.com.

All photos: Jax Moussa

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