Hedwig and the Angry Inch: Divina de Campo shines in a riotously camp revival

Alex Gibbon on 7 April 2022

It’s been 15 years since the last professional UK production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. With the media scrutiny of those who are gender non-conforming growing ever harsher and political rollbacks of LGBTQ+ rights cropping up left and right, it feels as though we need the smutty yet heartfelt musings of a genderqueer glam rocker more than ever. As Divina de Campo’s Hedwig proudly stands centre stage for the opening number, her fully extended denim cape emblazoned with the words ‘gender is a construct’, it becomes clear this production will be the antidote to contemporary toxicity.

Despite its humble off-Broadway beginnings and a box office bomb of a film adaptation, the musical has built a diehard cult following among Queer audiences akin to that of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The story follows Hedwig, an ‘internationally ignored’ East German rock singer, who battles with the trauma of a botched gender-reassignment surgery she undergoes to escape her Soviet homeland. Abandoned by her husband in middle America, she starts a relationship with Tommy Gnosis, a young, inspiring musician who goes on to break her heart, steal her music and become a world-touring rock icon. We join Hedwig and her band, named after her scarred genital mound, as she performs on a tour that shadows Gnosis’ while retelling her tumultuous life story with witty candour.

For this gig, the entourage have pitched up in Leeds. Jamie Fletcher’s production cleverly tweaks the script (with nods to Richmond Hill and Roundhay Park) and the multi-faceted set design from Ben Stones is primarily a Working Men’s Club stroke Dive Bar. It is as impressive as it is charming that Fletcher has managed to marry the original show’s riotous camp with a self-deprecating Northern sensibility.

The main attraction is of course Hedwig herself. From the moment spotlight illuminates her at the back of the stalls, it is de Campo’s show. The Rupaul’s Drag Race UK runner-up struts down the aisles, pausing to bask in the audience’s rapturous reception. They nail the bravado and showmanship of a diva with delusions of grandeur but also capture Hedwig’s punk edge, gyrating, growling, and rasping for a rowdy 100 minutes. Racing through the script’s funniest lines, de Campo delivers the jokes with a lovable lewdness, occasionally deploying exaggerated Yorkshire tones to hilarious effect. They truly are the star turn.

Yet, as much as the rip-roaring rush of the show’s soundtrack is electrifyingly Rock N Roll, it is easy to get left in the dust. Lose yourself in the anarchy for just a moment and you run the risk of missing a lyric crucial to the plot. Though ultimately, the spectacle of de Campo slut-dropping in sync with a giant inflatable gummy bear is enough to render any confusion insignificant.

By the show’s end, de Campo has put to good use their well-known four octave range and has even squeezed in a quick cameo from the iconic red wig and silver dress. Hedwig’s regalia has been removed layer by layer as she bares herself to vulnerability both physically and emotionally. Fletcher’s production succeeds in stripping back the pretensions of gender, belonging, and ambition in a show that centres and champions those that do not conform. This musical is a tonic, albeit one that is bittersweet and fabulously dirty.

Leeds-based Yard Act do not disappoint with debut album ‘The Overload’

Benjamin Forrest on 21 January 2022

Leeds-based post-punk quartet Yard Act burst onto the local music scene in September of 2020 with their first 7” single ‘Fixer Upper’ backed with ‘The Trapper’s Pelts’. Since then, the group have taken the independent music scene by storm, with singles ‘Peanuts’ and ‘Dark Days’ cementing the band as a unique voice among their peers. The long-awaited debut album The Overload is finally here, after some delays due to a shortage in vinyl pressing plants, and it is already a serious contender for album of the year!

With deep roots in the Leeds music scene, Yard Act is comprised of James Smith who grew a name for himself fronting Post War Glamour Girls, Ryan Needham who saw some success as one half of the core duo which made up the criminally underrated band Menace Beach, joined by Sam Shipstone on guitar and Jay Russell on drums. Their debut album The Overload seems to cover every mood from the high energy, driving beat of ‘Witness (Can I Get A?)’, to the existential-crisis-inducing despair of ‘Tall Poppies’ because closing out with a message of hope in the form of ‘100% Endurance’. Truly, there is not a bad song on this album – track 8 ‘Quarantine the Sticks’ even features contributions from Tor Maries (otherwise known as the post-punk giant Billy Nomates) . The standout track, though, is surely ‘Dead Horse’, which is arguably one of the best pieces of artistic social commentary since fellow Yorkshireman J.B. Priestley wrote ‘An Inspector Calls’. A stunning indictment of current-day England and the shoddy state it finds itself in, ‘Dead Horse’ features the sort of brilliantly smart and sarcastic lyrics which Yard Act have become synonymous with. 

Smart lyrics, catchy tunes and a decent sense of humour – independent music has been begging for a band like Yard Act for far too long. The Overload is a triumph of a debut album. Released on the band’s own Zen F.C. label, and distributed via Island Records, on a seemingly endless volume of different vinyl editions of varying rarity (including exclusive editions released via Crash Records and Jumbo Records here in Leeds!), plus hand-spray painted CDs and two different variants of cassette tape – surely there is valid opportunity for everybody in the country to own a copy of this album, and quite rightly too!

Currently on a tour of the nation’s record stores, Yard Act will return to Leeds for a show at Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen for the first time since their legendary Halloween 2021 set as part of Dark Arts Festival. Tickets are available via See Tickets, although they are likely to be snapped up very quickly so don’t hang around!

Women of Inspiration: Poly Styrene

Benjamin Forrest on 18 March 2021

Poly Styrene, in many ways, has fallen into a certain degree of obscurity since her band X-Ray Spex split in 1979. Prominent figures within the New Wave punk scene in the UK during the late 1970s , X-Ray Spex produced some of the greatest, most profound, lyrics of that era. Despite this, the music press only seems to remember the Sex Pistols – the punk equivalent of a manufactured boy band – and the likes of Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex are largely forgotten, or so it was thought. Clearly many people still remember the force of nature that was Poly Styrene (or Marianne Joan Elliot-Said, to use her birth name) as a documentary film, called I am a Cliché, telling her story was recently crowdfunded (before receiving funding from Sky) and aired on Sky Arts.

The film follows Celeste Bell, the only daughter of Poly Styrene, as she retraces her mother’s steps and tells the incredible, at points heart breaking, story of her life. The story is of the first woman of colour to front a successful rock band in the UK, a tortured genius, and undoubtedly one of the coolest people of the 20th century, but mainly of a mother and how her relationship with daughter Celeste progressed over the course of Poly Styrene’s career. The story of the documentary is told mainly through diary entries (voiced by Ruth Negga), personal accounts from Bell and interviews with fellow musicians and those who knew her. The visuals of the film are simply stunning; the shots of Celeste looking through her mother’s personal belongings are cut together with an unbelievable amount of brilliant archive footage, photographs and artwork – of which Poly Styrene created most. It truly is a visual treat to watch. 

The influence of Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex cannot be overstated, and this is shown within the documentary if only through the people who speak within it. Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill/Le Tigre/The Julie Ruin), Pauline Black (The Selecter), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Rhoda Dakar (The Bodysnatchers, The Special AKA) all testify to how influential the work of Poly Styrene was to them and the greater music scene – without her influence over Kathleen Hanna it is entirely possible that the Riot Grrrl movement would never have happened. The film also features contributions from iconic figures of the period, including Vivienne Westwood and Don Letts, interspersed between the monologue of Celeste Bell and Poly’s personal diary entries. 

A stand-out point within the documentary was the period of time which X-Ray Spex played a series of shows at the iconic CBGB club – famed for spawning such bands as The Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads to name but a few. Spending time in New York, the film reveals, Styrene was astonished by the huge prevalence of advertisements and consumerism. These themes were obviously prevalent within her lyrics (for instance, “It’s 1977 and we are going mad / It’s 1977 and we’ve seen too many ads”, from ‘Plastic Bag’). Many of the observations made in her diary entries, read aloud within this film, correctly predict how advertising has shaped or damaged the lives of people in the modern day. 

Thankfully, the documentary is not confined only to Styrene’s time with X-Ray Spex – though that section of her life is undoubtedly fascinating – it also deals with her childhood as one of the first waves of mixed raced children in the UK and how outcasted that caused Marianne to feel. The prevalent racist attitudes in the UK during 1960s and 70s with regard to the rise of the National Front and Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ hate speech are not often covered from a biracial perspective, however this documentary deals with the topic in a very informative way. It is an important story to be told in terms of the social history of the UK and is far too often glossed over. 

Her struggles with her own mental health, her unsuccessful (or rather: unappreciated) solo career, her dedication to the Hare Krishna movement, and her glorious early 00s comeback are all detailed within the film. Aside from being a story about a pioneering and gifted poet and lyricist, it is simply a very interesting and important story; the fact it is finally being told and Poly Styrene is finally receiving the credit she is due is a cause for rejoice. I am a Cliché is one of the most interesting and well put together music documentaries in recent time. If you are a fan of the band, feminism, music history or social history in general you will likely enjoy this film. As stated by Pauline Black in the film “The world is playing catch up with Poly Styrene, not the other way around”. 

Pom Poko release weird and wonderful second album Cheater

Benjamin Forrest on 2 February 2021

January saw the release of Cheater, the second full-length LP by Oslo’s finest art punk outfit Pom Poko. The album was released via Bella Union, an independent record label operated by Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins – so, inherently, anything put out on Bella Union must be worth a listen. In a similar vain to Cocteau Twins, Pom Poko have managed to create their own weird, wonderful and distinctive sound which really comes into its own within their latest offering.

Their 2019 single ‘Leg Day’ gained airplay on radio stations such as BBC 6Music, and the band were fairly high up on the bill for Live at Leeds 2020 (which obviously did not go ahead). Pom Poko seem to be on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream of alternative music, and if this record does not tip them over the edge then there is no justice in the world. Every track is so perfectly crafted and yet simultaneously chaotic you cannot help but stop in amazement about what your ears are actually hearing. The melodic siren song vocals of lead singer Ragnhild Fangel are backed up by a vicious menagerie of noise and distortion reminiscent of an acid trip at a Mudhoney show – it shouldn’t work, but it does. 

The name Pom Poko comes from a 90’s Studio Ghibli film in which mythical creatures with shape-changing abilities use their supernatural powers in order to combat the urban development threatening their forest home. To an extent, I think that is a good representation of the band in terms of them using all their outlandish and unusual musical devices to combat the banal, grey, commercialised nature of so much of the music being released as of late. Pom Poko are determined to prove there is still a place for originality and experimentation in music. 

Cheater fluctuates between moods, from the dreamy almost-dreampop atmosphere created on ‘Andrew’ and ‘Body Level’, to the out-and-out punk chaos of ‘Andy Go to School’ and ‘Look’ yet, weirdly, it never feels jarring when listening in the context of the album. ‘Curly Romance’ is perhaps the best example of how Pom Poko are able to effortlessly switch moods, often abruptly, even within the same song. Listening to this album is like being caught up in a whirlwind except it is simply euphoric and, for want of a better word, fun. ‘Like a Lady’ is the standout track on Cheater as it sums up, for me, everything that the band means, as well as being a perfect development upon their previous work – it blows ‘Leg Day’ out of the water, despite how utterly incredible that song is. 

The band put their uniquely explosive sound down to a clash of their ‘jazz school training and experimental leanings’, and if jazz school incorporates even a fraction of the tumultuous debauchery present on Cheater, then sign me up! 

Pom Poko are set to play the Community Room at Brudenell Social Club in September, and I am looking froward to witnessing their rapturous chaos firsthand.