Drag Prince Alfie Ordinary arrives in Bristol

Alfie Ordinary brought his show, ‘Help! I think I might be fabulous’, to Bristol at the end of January. Alfie caught up with Bristol24/7 to talk about his award-winning take on gender and cabaret. 

Alfie describes himself as a Drag Prince, the son of a Drag Queen.  Far from just the apple of his mother’s eye, “Alfie is a prominent member of the fabulous community in his own right,” he explains in diva-style third-person.  

Alfie began playing with the tools of his trade from a young age when he was involved in cabaret.  One of his first experiences on the stage came at a Bristol festival when booked into the ‘family tent’.  

Alfie took to the stage to present his “rather avant garde piece about love, love loss and lust, featuring music by Nelly Furtardo and a sad clown aesthetic with birds nest head piece”.  Given Furtardo’s lasting hit ‘I’m Like a Bird’, the head piece isn’t too off-piste, I suggest.  It’s fair to say, Alfie recalls, that the “toddlers being propped up by their parents, looked at me with confusion and fear”. 

He credits himself as immensely lucky; his background led him to be enrolled in Madame Leqoq’s Preparatory School for Fabulous Boys.  Raised without the pressures of modern masculinity, he questions the concept from the outside.  No stranger to criticism, ‘Help!…’ is Alfie’s rebuttal to a modern world that remains as preoccupied with masculinity as ever.  

Performance is the only art that needs to be practised in the open; with no retreats to creative sanctuaries in the Cotswolds, performers always amass a few embarrassing gigs.  “I once wet myself in a lift in a tube station in full make up,” Alfie interjects,  “I had to change back into my sequin trousers to travel home.”  

Alfie is particularly inspired by David Hoyle’s character The Divine David.  Described as an ‘anti-drag queen’, Hoyle penetrated the mainstream with TV appearances in the late nineties.  “I love his outlook and his way of articulating it”; for those unfamiliar, Hoyle embodied the need for the LGBT movement to be politically ambitious, and eschew hedonism.  Freddie, Elton, George Michael; Alfie would love to celebrate queerness in the same way. 

Discussions on gender have entered the mainstream more strongly than ever, but can attitudes on gender change beneath the transitory veneer of media attention?  “There were queer icons in the seventies and there’s still less progressive minds that want a quiet life.  Swings and roundabouts I suppose”.  Social media will make it easier for young people to educate themselves and keep the conversation progressing, Alfie hopes. 

“I’m much more confident in my queerness since being a performer.  Sadly, the world is quite a horrible place and we all need to look out for each other.  I hope my shows can shed light on injustices and how to tackle them, as well as bringing joy.  It’s not all about moaning on Facebook, we have to get out there and act, now.”  

It strikes me that live performance enforces this.  Simply by going out and enjoying ‘Help!…’, we can stop being those moaners by creating a positive space for its ideas.   The reception is gratifying; “I always tell audiences I love them.  We’re together because we believe in love, and it’s a great moment,” Alfie concludes.  With a mixture of songs, humour, even puppets, ‘Help!..’ has proved so popular that, a year on from its debut, Alfie is performing a run at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe. 

Alfie is hoping to make music in the near future. “I’ve been working on tracks in the studio.  Some people like books, some people like cinema, but music is my thing,” he says.  I couldn’t help firing some quick-fire questions: the three songs you’d want played at your funeral?  “My Life, by Shirley Bassey; Circle Of Life, by Elton John; Queen, Who Wants To Live Forever?”  

The ultimate dream?  “I’d love to work with a full band. We’ll see.”  With Elton and Shirley on my mind, it’s not hard to understand the dream for a full band on stage.  Given ‘Help! I think I might be fabulous’, it’s a performance I’m hoping for too. 

Read more: Review: Help I might be Fabulous