Suddenly you're older

Another Saturday night in, I feel positively middle-aged. Oh well, Duckie next Saturday and both nights of the Big Bexhill Valentine's Weekend. Outfit crises a-brewing.

And it's not like this week has been a solid run of abstemious school nights. Wednesday was the Peter Tatchell fundraiser cabaret event at the Phoenix Artists Club. I'm not quite sure why Tatchell needs funds at the moment - maybe he's saving up to punch the Pope or something - but no-one could argue with the line-up of fabulous gay artistes, many of them familiar from the Axis of Duckie.

Bit of a last minute decision on our part but me and TSB hung around in Soho after work for a few hours before toddling along to the Phoenix, where everything is setting up. Coincidentally, I'd seen the venue only a week earlier when Mel took us there, and I'd liked it so much I'd joined up on the spot. £120 a year isn't bad for a quiet(ish) spot in Soho where one can be guaranteed a seat of a Friday. And I like the general atmosphere, the clutter of theatrical bric-a-brac.

On Wednesday, there was a clutter of theatrical queens. Having lived a while in London, with its large-enough-to-self-segregate gay scene, I don't tend to come across that particular subgroup of Gay Men Of A Certain Age very often. When I lived in Scotland, the scene was much smaller, so bars and clubs and "gay events" were more diverse, in terms of age range. Here, the likes of Duckie (with its "playgroup for the over-30s" vibe) are more varied than most, but one would have to venture to the Quebec to see the sixtysomethings at play.

Chatting with DawnRightNasty, we agreed that it was refreshing to see so many of this older demographic: it bolstered one's confidence that queer social life doesn't end at thirty, or forty, or sixty, or whenever. Lots of nice cashmere coats and a sprinkling of growing-old-disgracefully leather. If I'm as attractively dapper in my sixties as these guys, I'll be very happy indeed.

Oh, speaking of sexy older men, Brian Paddick was there for a little while, looking very fanciable. I think I'm developing a bit of a crush on him...

And so, on with the show! We parked ourselves in the Members Bar at the back and watched the main area become progressively busier. Nathan Evans, David Hoyle and DawnRightNasty were sitting nearby, and were later joined by Fred Bear - all very Vauxhallville. My eye was caught by a rather dashing (and oddly familiar-looking) chap in distinctly Victorian white tie and tails. Turned out he was one of the MCs, Mr Meredith (Luke? I didn't catch his first name). The acts were introduced, the first being Earl Grey reprising his Queen's Speech. Clever, funny stuff, but I rather missed his Vivien Leigh. Caught him afterwards:



I missed a few of the following acts, having become engrossed in conversation with the ever-fascinating TSB. There was a poet called Ernesto Somethingorother, a striking latex geisha Miss Akimbo, QBoy and the very lovely Le Gateau Chocolat. I'd seen the latter (very deservedly) win one of the voguing categories at Liverpool Is Burning but it was a bit of a revelation to hear him sing. I liked his version of The Man That Got Away. Here he is with Miss Akimbo:



I pushed through the crowded main bar to grab a photo of Dickie Beau then retreated to a more comfortable spot to enjoy his extraordinary Judy Garland monologue. Despite having seen it before, this was just as emotionally engaging, holding the audience spellbound. Where I was standing, people were making little gasps at points of particular intensity.



I briefly chatted to Dickie Beau afterwards and drunkenly gushed at him a bit. As I do.

An angelic-looking David Hoyle was introduced as the last act. I think I liked him; he's so out of the ordinary that sometimes it's hard to tell...



Fred Bear had got togged up in a very cute outfit (I got to feel his scut!) and I was initially disappointed that they'd run out of time for him to perform. David Hoyle brought him up on stage, though.



How does he get his facial hair to look so immaculately handlebartastic? I have moustache envy.



He finished off with a spot of bearbacking:



We drank far too much wine for a school night and indulged in the traditional-but-ill-advised ritual of popping into filthy, seedy ol' 79CXR for a final one for the road. Boozehounds.

Turn the lights out before you leave, goodnight

I'm posting this in the hour or so before finishing work and heading out to meet TSB and Mel at the Soho Theatre for Justin Bond's Lustre. The plan then is to grab Gareth and scoot across town to the smuttily-named KUNST for an evening of "neo-Weimar cabaret for the fabulous generation" (I'm wearing one of my more dubious Stasiesque coats especially) - hopefully in time to catch the very lovely Our Lady J, who'll also be hot-footing it there from the Soho Theatre, having been invited (by DawnRightNasty) to headline the cabaret.

Keeping up? Now read on...

Okay, I'm playing up the social butterfly thing but it is an unusually hectic week for us in terms of going out - credit crunch be damned! Luckily, I've just discovered that I'd booked a week's leave from work next week then promptly forgotten about it (don't ask) so I'm very much in the mood for celebration.

Last night was the final Vauxhallville, the very last one ever. I felt surprisingly sad, considering I only really discovered it in the last month or two (it's been running for two years). If anything, that makes me feel all the more regretful at not having made more of an effort to check it out. Must try harder.

The last run of Vauxhallville has focused on the history of Vauxhall itself, from the Pleasure Gardens to modern day - or, rather, the 1990s. Why the '90s? Because 1995 is when Duckie started up in the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and Duckie's what made all the difference.

In Morrissey-circa-Vauxhall And I mode, Nathaniel DeVille reminisced with sexybeardy bar manager Jason...



... then performed his puppet show musical based on the songs of The Smiths. We'd seen this before, at the Duckie Morrissey Special, a few years back, but it was good seeing it again. Sweet in a vaguely x-rated way:



Timberlina glowed in a rather lovely robe...



... and Gareth trounced Yanni (it's Swedish for Johnny) in a nailbiting Duckie quiz as well as scoring a prize for the cardboard Crack House he designed for the model Vauxhall Village. He was made of WYN!



We watched a very entertaining piece of film, in which David Hoyle (dragged up in the manner of his former incarnation, The Divine David) wandered around a sunny Sunday Vauxhall, teasing builders and chatting to assorted blingy passers-by, cannabis-wreathed moxen on the Grassy Knoll and - in a surprisingly touching segment - mottled porkers and precociously angelic kiddies in Vauxhall City Farm. David Hoyle came onstage afterwards, sans drag, and seemed mellower and, well, happier than I've seen him before.

Nathaniel got his kit off (I've always liked his William Morris tattoos).



Finally (well, penultimately), the stalwarts of Vauxhallville got together onstage for a glass of champagne (we quibbled over the source of the quote "champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends") and what seemed like a genuinely moving mass goodbye. Even DawnRightNasty left her box. Briefly.



Then the lovely lovely lovely boys from Bearlesque (and, more recently, side project The Dream Bears) did their thang, to the thundering strains of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero - possible the perfect way to go out with a bang.



Bearlesque have been a consistent high point, and one of the main reasons I wish I'd made it along on more Thursday nights. Ah well.



Dreams that gliiitter.



I've got something in my eye and I want to bathe it.

*sob*

Goodnight, Vauxhallville.