30 October to 11 November 12 noon until 5pm daily
Camp & Furnace , Greenland Street, Liverpool, L1 0BY
Council House Movie Star is an immersive live arts installation exploring themes of ageing and the non-heterosexual experience, created by Mark Edward (former contemporary dancer, current Senior Lecturer in Performance, Edge Hill University) in partnership with award winning film-maker Rosa Fong and Dr Mark Fremaux. (Senior Lecturers in Media, Edge Hill)
It captures the weird, wonderful and darkly comic aspects of the everyday life of Gale Force, an ageing drag queen and failed child star of OMO Washing Powder commercials, in her run-down council house.
Audiences will enter an approximation of Gale’s council house built inside former industrial space Camp and Furnace. The house will be inhabited variously by Gale Force, her social worker Dawn Patrol, friends Donna Rhea and Chris D’Bray and other family members.
An accompanying gallery exhibition will feature 7ft fine art paintings of Gale Force created over the last two years by North West artist Pete Bennett. A further space will show a 30 minute film, Council House Movie Star, on continuous loop to audiences sat on lavatories.
Mark Edward explained: “I want audiences to see beneath the persona of Gale Force, to get a glimpse of what it’s like behind closed doors, away from the bright lights. There is a lot of work around youth in performance but very little about the ageing performer, especially drag queens.”
Gary Everett, Director of Homotopia, said: “The theme of this year’s festival is ‘traditional family values’ and Council House Movie Star is one of the key elements. It explores and interrogates ageing from a performative and queer perspective in a timely and relevant way.”
CHMS is funded by Edge Hill University and Homotopia.
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