l
rm-
man- Cunning Lingo
It’s take-no-prisoners time. She once declared her fantasy was having ‘Jodie Foster sit on (my) iace with no panties . . .’ ‘Butchiemmelezziedykeiag’ ranted the title oi her show last autumn. ‘Lesbo- a-gogo’ was its predecessor. She wants to do an album called ‘Bulldyke In A China Shop’. And now this 33- year-old Italian-American resident oi Massachusetts is the ‘Muii Diva’. Lea 0elaria wants you to know where she’s coming irom. ‘MY VAClliA!’ she would no doubt scream.
‘A lot oi people come up to me and say, “Where do you get the energy?” because I’m always running around and screaming and yelling and ranting. I just want to make sure everybody in the audience sees me.’
For ten years the Muii Diva’s (quite literally) in-your-iace humour and acclaim was coniined to America’s gay/alternative circuit. But in the wake oi a breakthrough appearance on ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ in the States in March, Lea Delaria has been on the mainstream rise, throwing her sex-drenched humour at all and sundry. And everyone is lapping (slurp, slurp) it up.
‘A lot of people have this idea about
. iemlnists,’ she says, ‘that we’re
5 humourless and iixed on a lot oi male
hatred. You don’t get that irom me, you see that my comedy comes strictly irom a very loving standpoint. I really love people, and that really shows. It there is anything to learn irom my stand-up it’s not that lesbians hate men, it’s that we love women.’
Muii Diva: orgasm addict
ilow loudmouth lea, possessor oi a belting blues and jazz voice to boot, is about to shake Britain. Already there is talk oi a Channel 4 sitcom. But please note: ‘lt wasn’t like I went into lesbian periormance because I thought it would get me on TV. Mostly when I started, I did it because I thought I’d get laid.’
So where does she get that manic, ioul-mouthed energy irom?
‘I try to have 30 or 40 orgasms a day, that picks it right up. Makes you raring to go!’
Whereas it makes guys iall asleep (apparently).
‘Well oi course, guys can’t have 30 or 40 orgasms, har har har,’ she cackles. ‘Yeah, you got the money, you run the world, but I can come 500 times!’ (Craig McLean)
Muii Diva (Fringe) Lea Delaria, Assembly Booms (Venue 3) 226 2428, 14—30 Aug, 11 .45pm, £7.50/£6.50 (EB/£5).
Al Murray - Portrait of a Serial Killer
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Al Murray: the psychopath’s psychopath A PSYCHOPATII WBITES: ‘Want to make it as a serial killer? Ready to handle the pressure - the press, the angry crowds shouting at you as you arrive at court and the endless comparisons to that wimp Hannibal Lecter? Good: iollow these simple steps and you
could be on the way to a whole new way oi Iiie!
STEP 1: Voices in your head are a big bonus. Most killers talk about a ‘demon’ in them, like Satan. Some say it’s God. Others say it’s both. Personally, I’ve got Fizz irom Eldorado telling me what to do, so it you’re in MacDonald’s and someone shouts, ‘I luv you Bunny’, duck.
STEP 2: Parents. Make sure you’ve got some so that they can be blamed (and this is the best bit) instead oi you.
STEP 3: It helps ii you’re not queasy. This may seem like an obvious point, but a lot oi promising careers have been nipped in the bud by this very basic problem.
STEP 4: Don’t let your public down - what they really want is blood. And remember, don’t work with animals or children, especially ii you want a sympathetic jury at your trial.
Look, no one said it would be easy, but it is! You’ll never be caught and they even call it ‘recreational murder’ nowadays. Happy hunting!’ (Al Murray) Al Murray - Portrait 0i A Serial Killer (Fringe) Al Murray, The Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, 11 Aug-4 Sept (not 16 Aug, 2 Sept), 10.15pm, £6.50 (£5.50).
FESTIVAL
V COMEDY
THE COMEDY ZONE
The Comedy : which one's the driveller?
A DRIVELLER WRITES: ‘l was lying in bed yesterday when the telephone went. it must have opened the front door with its receiver. though it forgot to unplug itself from the wall and only got as far as the garden fence. By the time I caught up it had already off-loaded two stolen gardens and was ringing for a taxi to the airport.
When I got back to the house there was an envelope waiting for me on the doorstep. but i hadn‘t been gone long so it wasn’t too annoyed. When i opened it up there was nothing inside. confinning my beliefthat there‘s very little point in receiving air-mail. It was then that I noticed that there was a note from the milkman on the doormat. I took it to my music teacher who identified it as part of the lost chord which had been missing for three weeks. rendering her incapable of switching the bathroom light on. Back home i unplugged the television so it didn‘t make the same mistake as the telephone and set about writing 250 words for ‘The List'. i wrote ‘250 words‘ on the back of a girl I‘d never met before and sent her to Edinburgh by blind-data- post.
And the moral of the story is: Australian comedians whoAve never been to the Glastonbury Festival should never go there. get wasted. and then decide to have their hair cut by the first hippy they meet with a pair of pinking shears. Should they. Matthew?‘ (Boothby Graffoe)
l Boothby Craiioe comperes The Comedy Zone (Fringe). The Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550. ll Aug-4 SeDt (not 16 Aug. 2 Sept). 10.45pm. £7.50 (£6).
' they idealise life. Nair has
V COMEDY ' ADAM IN ECUADOR
‘l‘d just finished reading 011 The Road by Jack Kerouac and. as coincidence would have it. this friend of mine was wanting to ditch his girlfriend. . .‘
it is l986. Two Californian twentysomethings. fired by beatnik dreams and crap relationships. hit the road. South America. Ecuador in particular. is their destination; there to lose themselves and to find . . . ‘you get there and find that there is absolutely no point in your being there‘. Except to formulate the basis of a 60-minute comic monologue. Adam In Ecuador is Adam Long's barmy account of how he. middle-class west coast whitey and veteran of some l5.(X)O hours of television. found himself adrift in a world of shootings. tear gas and
goats being slaughtered in the streets - ‘and my whole world view was based on The Brady Bunch ! ’
For his monologue — which also features the music ofJeff Stott — Long drew on the raconteurly tradition of Spalding Gray. his own experiences as a stand-up comic. and the irreverent spirit of his ‘day-job‘. as one-third of those ‘boy-wonders of brevity‘. The Reduced Shakespeare Company. Just as the latter‘s I993 Fringe production. The Cumplete History Of America (Abridged). takes a side-swipe at mythical. apple-pie America. so zit/um In Ecuador sets its sights on sad westerners who head off in search of ‘inner peace‘ or the ‘true path‘ oi‘duty-free mescal.
‘I think it's cool if life is without meaning.‘ shrugs Adam. (Craig McLean)
I Adam In Ecuador (Fringe) Adam Long. The Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550. 12-30 Aug. 10.45pm. £6/i.‘5.5() (£5/£4.50).
10""'/LATE
V THEATRE THE BIG SLEEP
Adapting Chandler‘s classic for the stage should have spelled trouble. The plot comes tight with a history wrapped round. Bogie. Bacall. Black. White. The draw] of a narrator. But the allure offilm hair was too much for Kieran Clifton. so he took the easy way out and tumed trouble to advantage. ‘We wanted to stick film hair on the stage and then talk a bit about it.‘ he says. ‘So we chose a film that most people know a bit about.’ So far. so cool. But you never know with these Oxbridge companies. ‘lt‘s
i a look at movies and how
the biting edge. you always feel that something‘s going to go really wrong. that its going to be really bad. but the movies always have really classic endings.‘ Clifton wasn't terse enough. But let that pass. he‘s gone back to the book. chosen Chandler's Marlowe. not the role imposed by Bogart. ‘It's never going to be a happy ending. even if the detective solves the crime.‘ he says. Maybe. But why nuir'.’ 'lt can look great on stage and actors like being 40s film heroes.‘ The truth is often obvious. (Thom [)ibdin) I The Big Sleep (Fringe) C Theatre Company. C (Venue I9) 225 5105. ll Aug—4 Sept (not 19 Aug. 2 Sept). midnight. £5 (£3).
The Big Sleep — the biting edge
The List l3—l9 August [993 57