High as Sugar - a review

This one-man (plus pianist) musical is a tour de force performance of passion, energy and sheer commitment by its writer and central performer Tanner Efinger.  The show is based on the life of the trangender actress Holly Woodlawn, who died last year, a remarkable character who starred in Andy Warhol films including Trash and Women in Revolt to great acclaim, living the ‘Warhol Superstar’ lifestyle to the hard-partying, sexually-liberated full.

The fictionalised Woodlawn is Sugar “like the fairy” (Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum theme is heard first in a music box, then recurs throughout the score) a transgender woman living in New York in the 60s.  Utterly incorrigable, she works her way up from prostitution to partying at Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory’ and the edge of stardom, rubbing shoulders with Yoko Ono and the coolest set of a generation.  She is a huge character, brought to life with incredible vividness by Efinger’s performance, camp as Christmas and at once bitingly queeny and little-girl fey, her moods flip on a knife-edge from motormouthed anecdotes about her partying to vicious anger at the indignities of her unconventional life.  She struts, she squeals, she dances, she rants, swigs vodka from the bottle, snorts coke from her dressing table and changes clothes every five minutes in a performance saturated with energy and commitment.  The character Efinger has created is complex.  Despite the obvious cruelty of the world she inhabits, Sugar retains a touching positivity brushing aside chronic money problems and arrests for indecency.  People are “all so lovely”, her gaudy clothes “so fabulous, isn’t it, I got it at Macy’s?”,  A letter from her mother (conventional but supportive, neatly sidestepping the more cliched family estrangement trope) a cause for sentimental pride as she passes her photo round the audience.

Sugar’s (almost) silent companion throughout is the show’s composer & music director Matt Winkworth.  He sits at the piano, impassive, watching Sugar’s hysterical rages with a benign but slightly questioning eye, never commenting except in a brief lullaby as she sleeps.  He comes in for a lot of abuse too, as Sugar takes her periodic ire out on him, ranting that she “discovered him, took him in when he was nothing”.  But we wonder what reality he really inhabits, as he mutely keeps Sugar company without any apparent independent existence, pandering to her frequent demands to “play me a song - no a faster one!” the Greek chorus to the melodramatic turmoil of Sugar’s state of mind.  The songs are minimal, with a whimsical air that is typical of Winkworth’s style, all broken music box switch-back changes of time signature under sweetly melodic voicings of Efinger’s ever-illuminating text.  The music is timeless music theatre without a hint of the  generation in which Sugar is living and I did feel that more engagement with the musical styles of the era might have contributed to a sense of place and time which is - perhaps deliberately - rather lacking.

Suzie Burlton’s set, in the little in-the-round floorspace of the King’s Head, is minimal but effective, and direction from Lizzy McBain and Emma Webb rightly trusts Efinger’s undoubted ability to carry the audience with him as he moves from apartment to nightclub, graveside or the hotel room of a client.  There is occasionally slightly too much ‘running on the spot’ style rushing from imagined place to place, but the honesty of Efinger’s performance carries us easily through such moments of disbelief-suspension, never descending into farce.

With a style often akin to drag-act cabaret - reminding me also a little of Keith Waterhouse’s Soho-soak monologue Jeffrey Barnard is Unwell - the audience is kept involved at every turn, Sugar by turns confides and lectures, flirts, asks advice and, finally, shockingly, turns on us.  Because this is the big finish, the punch-line of the whole show and, in some ways, the moral of the story.  Abandoned by her celebrity friends - ‘Andy’ is mad at her because she was constantly drunk on his film set - Sugar is evicted and forced back into prostitution.  She takes out her rage, first on Winkworth, who stoically leaves the stage with one last look of paternal sadness, and then on the audience as she berates us for our complicity in the freak-show flavour of her story, for our voyeurism, our hunger for spectacle.  Tearing off her clothes and wig, standing in her naked male body in the cold glare of the theatre working lights she screams

“Isn’t THIS what you came here for? Well you’ve seen it, so now f*ck off!”.  

High as Sugar - Kings Head Theatre, Upper Street - Wednesday 20 July

Tanner Efinger (writer/performer) Matt Winkworth (composer/performer) Lizzy McBain (director), Suzie Burlton (design), Emma Webb (movement director).

This is my City

This is my city

All are welcome here,

No need to hide, no need to lie,

Speak proudly without fear.

I may not understand you

And we may disagree,

But your views are your birthright

So hold them and be free.

Building this city

Is a work of love

No need for hate, intolerance,

Just listen; that's enough.

Don't be scared when things change

Though I see why you are,

Though things may alter round you

You may stay where you are.

This is my city

Once it welcomed me

And now I want to welcome you

Whoever you are; come, be.

Floodlight

She always felt judged by St Paul’s Cathedral.  

By evening it was floodlit. A jewel in the view from Waterloo Bridge, its dome floating benignly among the skyscrapers like an icon.  Then at 1am its lights went off as if it turned its back on the dark city in disapproval of its nighttime pursuits.  Mute abandonment leaving her vulnerable to temptation, lead us not.  

It was at those times that she knew she was alone.

That particular alone was about half-past-three, mild for November, the salmon-coloured sky a blanket over the quietly roaring city.  Stepping out onto the bridge, from sheltered Covent Garden, she felt the brisk wind rush by up the river, carrying its distant tang of sea.

The Southbank glowed enticingly on the opposite bank.  The handsome curve of the Festival Hall was crowned by the blue-lit Eye.  ‘Love’s Labours Lost Nov 2-28’ scrolled the tickertape on the wall of the National Theatre, ‘Look Back in Anger Oct 29-Dec 4’.

The bridge was quiet but gently humming.  Nightbuses passed ponderously, and a steady trickle of gliding Priuses and their homeward-bound passengers.  Feeling her head clearing of cocktail fumes, she paused, watching the blinking light on the summit of Canary Wharf, and leaned out over the concrete parapet towards the East.  

It was such a remarkable view, one of the great urban views of the world.  Whenever she felt, as she frequently did, that all London had ever done was chew her up and spit her out, she knew she could still feel some vestige of love for it when she stood here gazing along the river.  After many battered years it was the last echo of the joy the city had beaten out of her, a ghost of that feeling of possibility that had seemed inherent in somewhere with so much energy.  

She wished sometimes that she could go right back to the beginning and do it all again, trade her hard-won cynicism for a pair of fresh eyes.

“Built by women, you know, Waterloo Bridge” said a voice, suddenly next to her.  She glanced round.  It was just an old man, a ‘gentleman of the road’ her father would have termed him.

“During the war.  No men left, see, all on the battlefield or under it, and a new bridge needed.  So what to do?”

The man was bent and grizzled with age and hard living, but retained a whisper of glamour in his threadbare tweed suit and gently proprietary air.  He set down his tattered plastic bag of belongings on the handrail, extracted a cigarette packet from his waistcoat pocket with grimy fingers and proffered it

“Smoke?”

She glanced at the open packet, hesitated, then took one with a rueful smile

“I’d given up..”

“Don’t want to do that, now” said the man, drawing heavily on his fag and passing a shaded match

“Been smoking for sixty years, never done me any harm.”

She lit her cigarette from his roughened hands and looked downriver.

She had left at the right moment, tonight, she reflected.  There was a moment that came in every night when you could feel things turn, feel the darkness begin to get in among the gay abandon, the things in the shadows begin to stir and stretch themselves ready to prowl.  The trick was - and she’d learned this the hard way - the trick was to recognise that moment before it was too late and the darkness submerged you.  Get out while there was still light enough to see the exit.

The man seemed to follow her gaze towards the darkened dome.  

“Wreathed in smoke it was…” he said, almost to himself

“Bloody miracle it survived.  Gave us hope...”

She turned to look at him.  His untidy silver hair was catching the light thrown from Somerset House, but his eyes and the scored valleys in his cheeks were deep in shadow.  There was something insubstantial about his presence, as though he stood slightly apart.  She supposed he was homeless, a lost old man reduced to such indignity when he should be enjoying his retirement.  She wondered how old he was.

“During the blitz? “ she asked gently

The man took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled slowly, the smoke curling up until the breeze caught it and whisked it away

“They’d stopped for Christmas see, two nights of calm in all the bloody horror, ‘scuse my French.

Then they were back.  More than ever.  As if they’d just been regrouping, raining fire from the sky like Hell on Earth”

She tried to imagine it, wailing sirens and the smell of burning, the night sky lit up by the flames, the perils and dangers of this night.  The faceless glass and concrete of this modern city, so little stone or wood.

“It seemed like there’d be nothing left”

There was a long silence.  The clean wind blew fresh on their faces and the river glowed.  Nothing left.  Forsaken below and alone in the darkness that covered the Earth, the seeming triumph of evil...

When he spoke again, his voice crackled like dry leaves

“The fires began to die down just before dawn.

“Total devastation, it was.  There was no hope.”

A chilly grey dawn bringing no light so something so dark.  

“But then, early in the morning the smoke cleared.

And there it was, the dome of St Paul’s.  Like a miracle”

“Still there?”

“Still there.  Among the wreckage.  Untouched.”

He turned to face her and she saw his eyes for the first time, deep green and almost burning in the lights from the bridge.

“It was what kept us going”  he said fervently, as though he really wanted, really needed her to understand

“We knew then we could do it.  If St Paul’s could stand, so could we”

He smiled, seeming almost to glow with the vividness of his words.  She felt his  hopefulness, like a warm glow, light reflecting from his ancient face.

She looked past him onto the river, letting the strengthening wind blow back her hair and taking in the triumph in that darkened dome, of the living, vital city; if St Paul’s could stand, so could we.  She leaned far out and drank it in, like music.

When at last she turned back, the man was gone.  There was nothing but the cigarette butt, cold in her hand, and the humming bridge.

Is it what you thought it would be?

Is it what you thought it would be?

Does it sate the hunger?

Has it set you free?

Does it make you more than yourself

or just less than someone else?

Shine's worn off

beneath it now 

Same old tarnish anyhow

Same old paths begin to beat

with same old blisters on your feet

Is it what you thought it would be?

Does it sate the hunger?

Has it set you free?

Does it make you more than yourself

or just less than someone else?

Blinding light begins to fade

Racing heart is gently stayed

Things downed out by sacred word

begin to make themselves reheard

Is it what you thought it would be?

Does it sate the hunger?

Has it set you free?

Does it make you more than yourself

or just less than someone else?

Thought you'd found the cipher

Dug up the Rosetta Stone

Turns out it was another bit of rock

Like faith and hope and charity

Like glitters of fool's gold

Two-digit answer only in the book

Is it what you thought it would be?

Does it sate the hunger?

Has it set you free?

Does it make you more than yourself

or just less than someone else?

Scrapbook

Those trains you missed because you turned out late

Those messy nights you got into a state

Those times you failed and blamed it all on fate

..all have led you here

Took a break but didn’t make the cups of tea

The pigheadedness that meant you couldn’t see

Sat in silence, should have said ‘yeah that was me’

...all have led you here because

You can only be here by having been there

Only be here by having been there

The little things you felt you had to hide

That time you knew you’d picked the losing side

The things you wish you’d said before he died

...all have led you here because

You can only be here by having been there

Only be here by having been there

Flick back through the book

Take a lingering look

Don’t adjust the gauge

Because your life, little girl, was an empty page

That has now been written on

You can only be here by having been there

Only be here by having been there

The people that you’ve loved when love’s in vain

When it seems to be all loss and nothing gained

And the understanding you are not to blame

...all have led you here, all have led you here because

You can only be here by having been there

Only be here by having been there

No regrets, no regrets

You can only be here by having been there

Only be here by having been there

Feast

Milky, strong-edged fingers,

Comforting by possessing,

Pierce the resistance;

Bitterness rolling together,

Brittle daylight's capitulation to the salty flesh

Smeared with vinegar and singing

Present yet not present.

So much inside though without,

Warm, red darkness of a vast glowing room.

Formless twin forms

Selfish in melting,

Composed of vivid greed.

Pregnant layers simmer and froth,

A brimming hush, abstemious, 

Gleaming and flecked with sun

Surges to pooled celebration.

For S

Olga Hanks 1923-2015

My grandmother Olga Florence Baudains was born in 1923 in Jersey.  Growing up on a farm with one brother, Rodney, of a similar age, the young Olga had what sounded like an idyllic childhood.  She wrote about ‘roaming the fields at will, climbing into the hayloft to play with newly-born kittens, feeding the hens and playing ball games in the yard’ although she did admit that as a child she envied her town cousins who had bathrooms and electric light, and couldn’t really understand why they thought life on the farm was so wonderful!

An excellent student, her school reports consistently praising her conscientiousness, Olga persuaded her parents to allow her to stay in school to take her school certificate when she was sixteen.  From a young age she’d admired the skill of the typists she glimpsed in offices and longed to join them, so secretarial college followed, before Olga achieved her ambition by excelling, in her teens and twenties, at a number of clerical posts, including one at Lloyds Bank.

In July 1940, when Olga was sixteen, German troops landed in the Channel Islands and took them over in occupation.  For the next five years the islanders were trapped under Nazi rule, enduring increasing hardship and poverty, draconian military laws and the threat of deportation to concentration camps for the smallest infraction.  Although the sheer number of occupying troops made resistance difficult, islanders expressed their hatred of the regime in small acts of defiance.  After radios were banned, they learnt how to make crystal sets and would listen covertly to the BBC for news of the war not filtered through the German propaganda machine.   One day a German search party came to Olga’s house before their illegal radio set could be hidden and Olga’s quick-thinking mother distracted the soldiers with a bustle of cleaning and hid the radio up her jumper!

After D-Day things became even worse for the island as even the Germans’ supply lines to Europe were cut, and islanders and occupiers alike were close to starvation.  When liberation finally came in 1945 the relief and joy was so great that even 50 years later the memory caused Olga to weep.

As they sat in church in September 1939, Olga’s lifelong best friend Marguerite whispered to her excitedly that a new young man was coming to preach.  Olga watched as Peter Hanks, a young Welsh Lay Pastor in his early 20s ascended the pulpit, then turned back to her friend. ‘I don’t think much of him’ Olga whispered.

But of course, as with so many love stories, from this unpromising beginning grew, first a friendship, then something more, and shortly before Olga turned 21, Peter proposed.  However, in those days trainee ministers were not permitted to be married, so the engagement was kept under wraps until at last in 1948 Olga and Peter’s wedding was finally able to take place in the family church in Jersey.  The pictures show Peter smiling broadly in his clerical collar and Olga looking very pretty in a parachute-silk wedding dress with flowers in her hair.

After a honeymoon in Chester, the couple moved to Stone, Staffordshire, Peter to his new church appointment and Olga to begin her life’s work as a minister’s wife.

Olga took her role very seriously, not only as devoted wife, but as right-hand woman and key source of support to the Minister and circuit.  Methodist ministers moved church, in general, every three years, and on arrival in every new appointment Olga would immediately set to her pastoral work, forming women’s groups, toddler groups and Sunday Schools, hosting meetings, tea parties and dinners, visiting the sick, new mothers, and grieving families.  She had an uncanny knack of finding common ground with anyone, an eye for who was feeling excluded and a way of drawing people out, of making them feel listened to and appreciated.

Ministry was as much a vocation to Olga as to her husband - her own words about her life as a minister’s wife were as follows.

‘I have opened fetes, cut anniversary cakes, scrubbed floors, painted schoolrooms and washed tea towels.  It has been a privilege.

But the greater privilege has been all the people I have met over the years.  I have offered transport to a convicted murderer one day and had lunch in the members’ dining room at the House of Commons on another.  I have lost count of the number of wedding receptions I have attended (always wearing the same hat!) and of all the funerals where I have wept with people in their sorrow.’

As well as her work, Olga’s family was hugely important to her.  She remained close to her brother Rodney and his wife Mabel, in Jersey, until their deaths very recently, and especially to their daughter Catherine who read the lesson today.  Emails and phone calls flew backwards and forwards between Jersey and Dorset at least once a week, with Olga and Rodney spending hours on the phone bickering good-naturedly as they did throughout their long lives as close siblings, while Catherine kept Olga up to date with all the gossip from the island that Olga still regarded in many ways as home.

Olga and Peter’s daughter Alison, my Mother, who was born in Shropshire in 1951, was a close companion throughout Olga’s life.  After they retired from the ministry Olga and Peter moved to Dorset to be closer to Alison, her husband Rod - also a Methodist minister, you can’t move for them in our family! - and to me, her one grandchild.  We were a close family, often spending time all together, going to the seaside or eating Sunday lunch.  We stuck together in tough times too, after her husband Peter died suddenly in 1987 Olga became even more a part of her daughter’s family, later enduring with us her son-in-law’s long illness.  Olga lived independently - with much appreciated support from her daughter - until late last year, when she moved to Wolfeton Manor Care Home in Charminster, quickly making friends among the residents and staff and enjoying her bay-windowed room with its view of the gardens and the hills beyond.

I always loved visiting my Gran; when I was small she would often have a jar of sweets for me to dip my hand into and was always game for joining in my schemes, from acting the grown-up parts in make-believe plays to helping me catch baby frogs in the long grass at the back of her garden.  As I got older she remained a big part of my life as we talked about everything from friends to faith, work, relationships, worries and challenges, often laughing hysterically over the scrapes we always seemed to get into.

Olga was spirited and cheeky with a keen sense of the ridiculous.  She was sharp minded with wide interests - she was a keen Scrabble player - and had a good memory for an anecdote.  Although she sometimes found going out difficult she was naturally sociable, always welcoming to old friends and always keen to make a new connection.  

On her 92nd birthday, which fell just a few weeks before she died, I was on a flight which was the first I’d been on with inflight wifi.  I knew Gran would appreciate the fun of an email from the air and as I got my laptop out to write to her it struck me how often I found myself thinking ‘I must tell Gran that’ when something interesting happened.  That day I told her about the concert I’d just done in Norway and of how I could see the clouds beneath me as I wrote from the cabin - ‘I know it’s unusual so I feel so lucky’ I signed off ‘that I have a grandmother who is also my friend’.