There was a hula hooper, a juggler, a mime and a comic on our 2015 Christmas cabaret tour, and also a strip dance. Mine was known as the “hot dog act”. Every night, in full drag, I staggered onto a stage in a room full of total strangers with a pot of 10-inch hot dogs and shoved them up my nose, down my throat, into the air, to music. I copied the burlesque style and turned what could have looked sensual into something totally grotesque. You’ll find it hard to believe me, but during this period of my life I took myself – and my work – debilitatingly seriously.
There was a lot of luggage on that tour bus: suitcases full of costumes, yes, but also the emotional variety. Each of us has gone through the wringer – breakups, breakdowns, crises galore. I know, how festive. My mental health was in the pit and it had been six or seven months since I had spoken to my family. I was in self-destruct mode. Through our collective pain, we bonded as a cast. When you live and work together on the road, there is no escape. Before the show, our dressing room became a group therapy space. And after a performance, high on adrenaline, we sat and shared problems and too much merlot. One of the other artists read a book that argued that being born is traumatic and to heal you have to re-enact it. We talked logistics, but I never quite got around to reliving my own delivery.
Christmas can be a difficult time for strangers: not all of us are welcomed back into our families or the places where we grew up. It can be a reminder of traumatic times. I’m happy it’s not my story. I was brought up in a warm, supportive environment in rural County Durham. I ran and messed around in the fields, and I had a loving and straightforward childhood. As a child I performed a lot – youth theatre, am-dram, a clown act at a nearby theme park. I put on magic shows at the local library and puppet shows from behind the living room sofa, often to an audience of no one. I drifted about silly and carefree; dressing up, messing around and playing the fool, unbound by masculinity is what came naturally.
However, when I got older, I realized I was gay. I had no idea how to handle it. I didn’t know any other queer people. In the classroom it was the worst insult you could make. The teacher? The weather? Math homework? Gay, gay, gay. And mine was a Catholic school where there was never any talk of strange sexualities. The media was no better. On screen, the only gay storylines were those of trauma and pain – there was no positive narrative. Once I understood that this was my identity, I didn’t tell a soul. I was afraid of what people would think of me if I came out. What can happen if I am discovered. And so, I quickly buried all that silliness. Anything I was taught that could make me less of a man was discarded. I felt unworthy, ashamed of who I was. For years I stopped engaging with that whole part of myself.
By this 2015 tour, my world had changed. As a student in Newcastle, that guard began to come down. I came out and even started doing drag. As part of my course, I wrote a straightforward radio play about the women in the northeast I grew up with. To get it marked, it had to be recorded. I didn’t know any actresses or have the budget to pay, so I put on a voice and did it myself. Before long I was performing it in front of small live audiences. After graduating I moved to London with a now ex-boyfriend. He pursued his dream of becoming a musical theater star and I embarked on my drag career. I had found my people, yes, but I still felt ashamed of who I had become, even though I radiated confidence and self-acceptance on stage. That strange shame was unwavering. So I worked hard and partied harder and suppressed all that internalized hate.
For years, I worried that if that foolishness seeped into my personal life, I would be seen as untrustworthy, unworthy, and unprofessional. Inside me was still that child desperate to keep my true self hidden. This is why, I think, by 2015 I would also cut contact with my parents and siblings. I convinced myself that doing this meant I could disconnect from those difficult times. They are the people who knew me best – disappearing felt easier than trying to find the words to communicate what happened. The longer it went on, the more distant I felt. Finding a route to get back in touch was slipping further and further out of reach.
That is, until one afternoon in Edinburgh, our tour’s last stop, when something happened. In the dressing room, while we – the cast – were all hitting our heels, we got into one of our most personal conversations. I bared my soul, briefly forgot where I was. After opening, I turn back to the mirror and see myself – one eyebrow, crooked wig, makeup half done. My reflection was so ridiculous that, looking myself in the eye, I couldn’t help but laugh. Why was I, a literal clown, mired in misery? My problems all felt so heavy and big, but when I stared at my furry reflection, it all just suddenly felt so stupid. In wig and heels I was a professional frankfurter slurper; the day before I considered re-enacting my own bloody birth. It was so ridiculous. A deep, rich belly laugh kept coming.
Through Ginger Johnson, my drag persona, I was no stranger to channeling my unbridled ridiculousness. I sang a duet with a talking poo I met in a sewer; performed psychic surgery while dressed as a Victorian widow; made love to a talking custard pie; swallowed swords so far that they appeared on the other side. From the stage, however, I hid my inner clown. In the world of academic clowning, there is a concept called “clown in trouble” syndrome. It is a term coined by John Wright, teacher, theater maker and author of Why is it so funny? He writes about how becoming a total idiot can be an exercise in self-improvement. When you find yourself in a difficult situation, take the most ridiculous, ridiculous route out of where humor lies. He meant, I think, it’s a mantra for the stage. There in the locker room, I realized Wright’s ideas could also apply to my own life. Not just when I was performing. For years I imagined my life as a tragedy unfolding – why not turn it into a comedy?
Seven years later, this is how I see the world. When you approach each day as a ridiculous endeavor, life feels easier. When things go wrong, I look for the punchline. Most of us are pretending all the time, putting on a mask, trying to look high functioning when really we are baby brain idiots. I simply decided to embrace it.
So, I decided to call my parents – and made the call from the top of Edinburgh’s Arthur’s Seat. Mom picked up. For a while we just sat on the line in silence. Then we started working on repair and rebuilding. It couldn’t have gone better. It was light when I got up there, but pitch black by the time – hours later – we finally said goodbye and see you soon. Just after one of the most important conversations of my life, I had to scramble down a mountain in the dark because I was late for throwing a frilly dress and throwing spare change in my face.
I used to have an internal monologue that kept saying, “Oh God, how terrible.” I made a disaster. Now, I am articulating those thoughts. It’s easier to realize you’ve lost the plot when you hear yourself actually talking nonsense. When it feels like things are falling apart, I think of the most ridiculous, most disastrous end of the situation I’m in. This provides some perspective.
I had a festive performance last night. It was a disaster. The technology went wrong from the start; my backing track is messed up. Then, as I jogged from one side of the room to the other, my stiletto heel caught in a floorboard and I fell completely over. The old me would have been horrified: I would have thought my career was over, I would never be booked again. But as I lay there flat on the floor – wig floating askew, dress in my face and bunny-shaped shoes flying through the air – I started laughing. The crowd joined in.
There are many reasons why I drag. This is my creative outlet – how I express my ideas and politics. I perform children’s stories I wrote for children, full of happy LGBTQ+ characters – creating what I didn’t have when I was younger. Mostly, ginger is my way of spreading the silliness and stupidity that set me free. When I’m the most ridiculous thing in the room, no one else feels that eyes are on them; it gives audiences a license to let their guard down and experience the restorative power of the ridiculous. Ginger helped me find a way to exist in the world. Now she allows others too. If it fails, there is always rebirth.
As told to Michael Segalov
Ginger Johnson: Ginger all the way! runs until January 6 at London’s Soho Theatre
