Scottee on finding routes through the bullshit and getting messy with Rihanna

02 Feb 2020

"I don't go out there to try to make a difference, I go out there to confront people with the truth," says Scottee in an interview about his performances at the Progress International Festival of Performance and Ideas. "I'm just an artist. I can't make people think differently, I can't change government rhetoric, I can't elect people into power. That shouldn't be an expectation of me nor is it something that can happen. I think what artists do very well, hopefully what my peers do very well, what I enjoy does really well, is really confront us with conversations that we don't want to have. Confronts us with truths that we understand to be true but are easier left unsaid. Art helps us articulate those and find routes through the bullshit."

However Scottee has created a series of provocative, controversial and successful shows that contain truths about LGBTQ, "fat," age, "arts industry," and class oppression. He has described himself as  "recovering drag queen" and has a "provocation" about "gay apathy and laziness" titled "Drag Race Won't Save Us." And he worked with Rihanna. His debut solo tour The Worst of Scottee won the prestigious Total Theatre Award in 2014 and in 2016 he was included on Independent's Rainbow List as one of Britain's most influential LGBTQI+ people. He also has a very contagious sense of humour. When I ask how his gay identity intersects with his class and if that has changed due to his raised public profile, he laughs uproariously.

"First off I don't identify as a gay man, I identify as a queer person," he says. "How does that intersect with my class status? Well, queer people are also working class. There is a huge majority of queer visibility is lent to those who are working class. Has that changed after being named an influential person? No, because I believe in working class success. So many of the narratives around class are around deprivation and losing and failure, and I hope that being awarded something like that allows us conversations about what it is to be working class and succeed. What it is to be working class and happy. What working class success looks like."

The productions that Scottee is bringing to the Progress Festival are Class and Working Class Dinner Party. "Class is very much about a conversation about privilege, wealth and what it is to not have to think about and come without the baggage that those of us who grow up in working class backgrounds or poverty, precariousness, understand too well," he says. "How we've grown up very quickly. It's a conversation for an audience that hasn't had that experience. And to get them to understand how those experiences can really form you as a person, and maybe how we could think about moving forward and sharing. Working Class Dinner Party is very different. It's a conversation, a very direct conversation between me and working class artists, audiences, people, citizens, to think about what it is to be working class with each other. What it is that gets us, what it is that we're holding."

Though he says both shows are for "everyone and anyone," he emphasizes that they are "two very different offers." He explains that "Class is very explicit at who it is directed at. It's directed at those of privilege, those who are from the middle class, those who haven't had to think about some of these things. And Working Class Dinner Party, I'm just really hoping to meet some really gorgeous Canadian folk, or folk living in Canada, who understand some of my experiences, who I can share with and who can share with me, and for us to better understand what it is to be us."

These works fit into his oeuvre. "I made a show called Fat Blokes which is a dance show about fatness and in that we talk about class intersecting with fatness. In my other solo work, class is very much in the forefront of why things happen to me and around me. So Class isn't just about what it is to grow up poor, it's about what it is to grow up poor and queer. What it is to grow up poor with a family who have addictions. What it is to grow up poor and be first and second generation Irish migrants into the UK. It looks at all those things."

He further expands on intersection and addresses his rejection of a redutctive gay identity. "A lot of the work that I enjoy is often by queer and/or working class and/or fat folk who are using their bodies, who are using their experience. I think the 'gay' community is still very aesthetic led, there is still a real emphasis on aesthetic capital, body capital, and anyone who sits outside of that, be that people of colour, be that fat folk, be that disabled folk, be that fat folk with additional needs, be that women, be that femmes, non-binary folk, trans folk, we see how segregated the community is. So, if you sit outside of those, you'll understand what I'm saying when I'm saying things in my work. I guess maybe my work and the work that inspires me, is gathering up those of us who have been spat out by gay male culture. Those of us who aren't allowed to sit at the table. To have out little place, our place to reclaim."

Of course I have to ask about Rihanna. "I met Rhianna once," he says, "Well twice, so I don't think it's helped my public profile at all. I think it's something that people think is beautifully bizarre, the fact that this pop star one day wanted to do something messy and with food on The X Factor. It was me and a few other creatives who were invited in to help devise this performance. And we did. We had one performance rehearsal and one performance that went out live where we just covered the whole of The X Factor set in cream, which I got into a whole lot of trouble for. But, you know, fuck it."

Scottee's website, scottie.co.uk, contains fascinating essays on how he only tackles projects that are "too frightening" or "impossible," so I'm curious what he is currently work on. "I'm writing a few new projects. I'm going to making a circus show with queer artists looking at risk. Looking at how the queer body is often put through avoidable risk and the risk associated with circus. I'm also looking at making a piece with my mum looking at the global diaspora of the Irish community. What it is to be Irish living outside of Ireland and where that intersects with addiction and hereditary torment. You know, all light things."

Part of the Progress Festival's mandate is to bring international artists together for inspiration and possible collaboration. Scottee had already expressed his interest in "gorgeous Canadian folk" but I ask what other performances or artists he is interested in experiencing. "This will show how I haven't done my homework..." he says, laughing again. "But there's a beautiful show that everyone keeps telling me about which is by a Korean artist I believe, with some rice cookers that talk to the artist [Cuckoo by Jaha Koo]. I'm very excited to see what that work is about. It's also going to be my first time in Toronto, my first time in Canada. So my first time will be performing two pieces of work in this festival. I'm so excited because already they're such a beautiful gang of people. I'm just excited to be invited."