UNITED KINGDOM: BETTE BOURNE SPEAKS ABOUT HIS ROLE AS QUENTIN CRISP AT PREVIEW RUN IN EDINBURGH OF HIS PLAY 'RESIDENT ALIEN'

Record ID: 392015

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: BETTE BOURNE SPEAKS ABOUT HIS ROLE AS QUENTIN CRISP AT PREVIEW RUN IN EDINBURGH OF HIS PLAY 'RESIDENT ALIEN'
  • Date: 17th August 2001
  • Summary: (EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND) (AUGUST 16, 2001) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BETTE BOURNE SAYING "You kind of get into a frame of mind where you try to get as deeply into him and his personality as possible. And that's dictated by the lines and the text. It's just that you kind of slip into gear sometimes when you're talking about him. Because I'm quite unlike him in so many r
  • Embargoed: 1st September 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDO
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Arts,General
  • Reuters ID: LVAE5U2LMC3YDMJRT7NCSGY7CPEN
  • Story Text: As Bette Bourne prepares to transform himself into Quentin Crisp in London's West End, Reuters caught up with the veteran luvvie in Edinburgh where he was doing a preview run of his play, Resident Alien.
    A play, essentially a monologue, based on the character of the England's Most Stately Homo Quentin Crisp is bound to be interesting in itself. But when the man is played by one of Crisp's oldest friends then it becomes something special.
    Resident Alien was written on the eve of Crisp's death, based on many hours of interviews that Crisp's friend and cult performer Bette Bourne conducted alongside director Tim Fountain (also director of Puppetry of the Penis). Bourne was also given exclusive access to Crisp's remarkable New York diaries. The play is set in Crisp's legendary filthy one-roomed New York apartment.
    Quentin Crisp was an unknown 67 year old artist's model when the television version of his autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant, propelled him to international fame. In 1979, aged 72, he emigrated to the East Village of New York where he set up home amongst the alcohol and drug addicts on the Bosery. Cooped up in his tiny apartment, Crisp quickly established himself as a regular on the New York social scene, courting fame and people and any attempt to exhibit himself.
    His was a unique life, famous for refusing to follow convention, and for worshipping his beloved style. Which, for 1930s London, was received with fear and revolt. A man who tinted his hair lilac, wore a full face of make-up, and adorned his body in a similar fashion with pert scarves and silk blouses. He was a walking object of art, famously describing his own appearance as "simply a leaflet thrust into the hands of bystanders."
    Bette Bourne learnt a lot from him. "He taught me that you need to look as though you're going somewhere if you don't want to be attacked. He was attacked quite a lot. I mean he said to me "They don't know I was followed in the streets of London with thirty and forty people, pushing me and shoving me and groping me. And he was beaten up several times as you know."
    But it was undoubtedly the attacks and repeated prejudice that drove Quentin Crisp to fight back in the memorable way he did.
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