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1987
Lily Savage - Him 3 August 1987
Hello readers, what's a nice sex kitten like me doing sandwiched between naked men and adverts for rubber bedding you ask yourself? To tell you the truth I'm no neophyte to the world of journalism, having been in control of the lonely hearts column for The War Cry, and having the distinction of being the only woman to have done a nude centrefold for Exchange and Mart. I've got the perfect credentials to be a scribe for this little nudie mag. They sort of look on me as a Lois Lane figure in the HIM office, although I can't imagine Bryan Derbyshire in blue tights with a pair of red drawers pulled over them, doing a quick change in a telephone box. (I can visualise other things in a telephone box though - I've seen one of his films from his porn days, a bit rude them Victorians! how they got that donkey in though, and clad in that rubber wet suit, I'll never know.)
You won't be finding any sordid exposes in my little column. Jeffrey Archer will be breathing a sigh of relief, and so will Harvey Proctor. (Keep the money rolling in boys and I'll keep my gob shut.) If I was to open my mouth and spill the beans great names in showbiz and politics would never work again. Johnny Ray, Cyril Smith and Carla to name but a few. So you can tell me your little secrets, they'll be quite safe. By the way did I ever tell you Pat McConnon of The Royal Vauxhall Tavern's longing to dress up as Edith Piaf? I didn't? Never mind. Or Adrella's idea of the military two step, Slow Slow, Quick Quick, Thirty Quid With A rubber, Slow!
Don't be afraid to write to me with your problems. A trouble shared is a f*cking nuisance, but I don't mind, not only am I an ex-Avengers girl, former Miss Pears and a Priest's Housekeeper, but I'm a working mother with two lovely children. (You may have read about my eldest, Bunty, she was the notorious Stockwell arsonist.) So I know a bit about life. I've worked at Rockshots and come out unscathed so nothing can shock me. For example, here's a typical plea from one of the many letters that pour into the office. It goes: "Can you please help me? I am desperate, you see I have an itch in a very embarrassing place. What can I do? WORRIED BALHAM"
Well "Worried Balham" (probably Tricky Dicky) my advice to you would be "Scratch It". You see, a down to earth reply straight from the heart. Makes Claire Rayner look as sympathetic as Maggie Thatcher.
While we are on the subject of horrors, the Michele Lupo case gave the tabloids and police plenty of chances to spin a tissue of lies about "The Twilight World of the Homosexual". The Daily Mirror informed us that "Hero Cops dressed in exotic leather went 'Cruising' a la Al Pacino to trap gay killer". The Sun stated that "the gay scene closed ranks and hampered police investigation".
I seem to recall four very smart-arsed detectives enjoying the hospitality of various gay venues (free ale to you and me) asking me to appeal from the stage to gay men to come forward if they had any information about Lupo and his victims. Many gays did come forward , their information and co-operation leading to Lupo's arrest. As for the law they were dressed not in exotic leathers (muir caps trimmed with sequinned fruit perhaps?) but in good old Burton's suits, looking as inconspicuous as a foreskin at a Barmitsvah. I'm afraid the police have the same effect as Brussels sprouts on me - they make me ill.
Now then a little word in the shell-like of certain club and pub owners: you can not have cabaret if your facilities are non-existent. I recently worked in a hovel in Windsor; the sound system was something that the late Arthur Negas would have given a fortune for. On the way out of the premises I overheard one of the Windsor geriatrics complain "I couldn't hear a word she was blathering on about". Well my little pig's dropping, either invest in a decent hearing aid or complain to the manager for having the cheek to charge on the door and then expect an act to perform on a postage stamp dance floor with sh*t sound. It's the punters who are getting ripped off at the end of the day.
Well, I'd better go, my sister Vera has just fell over in the back kitchen, she's staying with me at the moment after recently completing a term in Holloway. She had a scheme going which involved children sending postal orders to her "Save A Blind Budgie" racket, when 'bang bang' on the door and there was the law "Two years, stand down Mrs Cheeseman". She's making Sloe Gin in my Zanussi now. Well, there's so many bloody dials and switches on it, we don't know how to work it. I kept the kids in it for a while. The Appliance of Science? Never buy a washing machine from a Martian.
Anyway thanks to all the folks up North for a smashing time last month. I hope to see you again soon. Take care.
Ta Ra.
Ethyl And Lily speaking your mind - Performance No.48 July/August 1987
This summer LIFT is coming to town again, and the media are already springing to attention. Time too perhaps for British artists to grumble about lack of money and attention and make unfair comparisons with the visiting artists from abroad.
Lily Savage has been voted Entertainer of the Year two years running by readers of Capital Gay. She always plays the same character, and almost always wears a different frock. Accompanied by a stuffed fox called Skippy, Lily appears in towering wigs, thigh-length boots and the sort of rags that give Petticoat Lane a bad name. Her act is a semi-improvised barrage of chat, news items and plain filth, all delivered in a heavy Liverpudlian accent. She plays in gay pubs and clubs all over the country.
Where do you come from?
From the docks. Birkenhead. I was brought up in Ireland though. My mother couldn't afford to give up working in the summer holidays and so I was packed off to me Aunties out in the west of Ireland. Milking a cow's f*ck all to me, oh no. I didn't know what a toilet was, it was just up behind the hedge, and we didn't have no bath or nothing like that. I developed a hatred of dairy produce. I still can't eat butter, no way, I saw where it comes from, oh no, this bloody great tit covered in warts and dragging the milk out of it, I just can't touch the stuff. Oh it made me a bit delicate being brought up on the farm.
How did you start doing this?
O Christ. They used to have these things in the Black Cap, like talent nights, and they said why don't you get up one morning and have a go, so I did, and then somebody behind the bar said do you want to do a double act, and I thought, oh well I'll have a go, I thought it was just a doddle to get up there and give it a bit, you know, but it's not, I soon found that out. The whole thing of being Lily Savage started by mistake, because you know I never used to go on the mike, oh no, and I was in the Elephant and Castle on their amateur night thing and they said to me we haven't got a compere, please will you do it, so I got rat-arsed drunk and I just sat there, and like two hours later there was no sign of an act, nothing, it was just me up there going on about well first this happened and then that happened. I thought, well I prefer this to miming. I just went home and worked on it a bit. Everytime I work I say well you've done it again, you've got away with it, no really, I just stand there and waffle on about nothing. I think the thing about it was that no-one else ever mentioned drugs, or talked frankly on stage about unemployment, or sex, and there I was on about oh we're busy tonight, must be giro week and all this shit, and people actually come up to you and say to you I don't feel ashamed signing on now, and if you can do that then it's very nice, you're not just some snotty drag queen miming away or whatever, you're approachable, they can get hold of you and identify with you.
Of course I'd done about two hundred other jobs before that. I was the clerk of the court in a magistrate's court, and I tried to be a social worker. That was with Camden, I did that for three years, did me three year stint. I've always got me mother in mind you see, this is a Liverpool Catholic upbringing for you, saying now you've got a good job, you know, it's drummed into you, do you know what I mean, I remember when I was 17 I went to the Civil Service and they told me its a marvellous job, bloody good pension, and I thought f*cking hell I'm 16, I'm just not interested in being 65, but anyway, I've always got that under my belt, I can always go back to being a social worker. It's nice to have something. I don't really want to be doing drag when I'm 50.
Do you think of yourself as working in a particular tradition?
Well, there's a London style, and then there's a Northern style, you know, all off down the Oxfam and then f*cking hell out comes the dildo and pregnancy routines, all this hairy old stuff. It's Northern humour, Liverpool humour. I suppose what I do is just Liverpool. They say it's universal but it's not, Liverpool style, not at all. If I'm in the wrong environment then it doesn't go at all, if I'm at the Garden or at some place where they're all very posh and hooray they all go eh what is this person on about, because they've never had to deal with things like that before, the type of things I'm talking about. I just change the act quick and I do it like I was somebody's cleaning lady, because they can relate to that. But it's not so much of a big act what I do, it's just this same character, people say it's like a relation that you never got to know but wish you had, I'm just on all the time about the family, the kids, having a drink, it's all low key, it's all very school of hard knocks, just talking about how things are these days. Sometimes I can come a bit of the wicked witch, but I'm certainly not glam drag at all. If I'm wearing something stupid or outrageous then that's all the better for me. I only get embarrassed if I'm trying to wear some smart dress, do you know what I mean, if I've thought oh well I'll try on a bit of glam here, then I'm not happy at all. This going to sound dead grand, but when I try and be the glam drag queen, forget it, complete wash out, I can't handle it, I just can't do all the posting and that, I just think get this f*cking thing off me and give me me boots. I just don't feel right. Mutton dressed as a lamb.
So where does your material come from?
All what I do when I do Lily is I just do me Mother and me auntie. Like you know I was brought up in Liverpool and there's me Auntie lying on the couch, and I say what's up with you, and she says oh I've just had me coil out, and it's so funny I was howling, and she says what's so funny, and she's on about this coil, this part of her body that's been removed, and her doctor won't give her valium so she goes to another one that will, and so there you are talking about these seventy year old women doling out the vallies like hardened drug addicts, 'how many have you got off yours?' - like everything I do is just the Liverpool thing, but blown up completely. That's where all the Catholic stuff comes from. Someone brought me one of these holy water fonts, hideous, it played 'AVE MARIA', and I went all to pieces, got it up on the mantlepiece and all that, and I went on about the Pope for a while, and then out comes the stopper and I started using it as scent, splash it on, do you know what I mean. Religion's a very heavy subject, but in Liverpool it's f*cking murder. I was brought up in it. Don't talk to him he's Orange Lodge and all that crap. That's why Lily's kids (Bunty and Jason - Ed.) go to this Catholic school. She only goes to church to nick the candles - last time Lily was in church was when the electricity strike was on. And the reason she's always slagging off nun's is 'cause I was brought up by nuns. What a wicked breed of bitches they are I can tell you. Scarred me for life.
Why do you choose to play strong women?
Lily has to be a strong woman because she's surviving with her kids and the husband in nick and the alcoholic mother and all and this that and the other, and like she is never miserable, she'll lose her temper and have a bit of a drink but she's a survivor basically. And that way I can kick off - I get frightened to talk about politics because I'm too ignorant when it comes to politics, but I'm constantly kicking off on Maggie and the lot of them, I get on my high horse and kick off if I think something's wrong, but I always do it as Lily, she's always onto the Giro, and how the heck am I expected to live on £18 a week and all this caper. I'd never do it myself, not as me. I never get political. I suppose I do kick off on the AIDS thing, and I do have a go at people's attitudes. I had a gang of straights in one night, it was a stag do, and they were saying 'Come on sing us a song, he's getting married in the morning' and I said 'If I was in the straight pub tomorrow and my boyfriend and I said we've been together ten years would you sing us a song please, would you have a smiling compere saying of course love, of course lads, would you f*ck, there's be a mass f*cking lynching,' I said 'there's the door, f*ck off, this is a gay pub'. That's Lily coming out.
Do people ever tell you that your work insults women?
No funny enough I've had a couple of people but it was the men not the women. I'm not a misogynist, no way, like up in Liverpool you never say oh she's a dyke, she's a lesbian, you don't give a f*ck, they're just there in the club with you. Down here I know it's totally different, 'f*cking dykes' and all that, but I can think of fifty gay men who I'd like to push under a bus and fifty dykes who are smashing. You do see some acts that go on about fish and all that kind of caper, it's f*cking disgusting that kind of attitude, I mean to say that when you're dressed up as a woman, you're trying to emulate them. I know I go on about me coil and the PMT but I'm not doing it in an insulting way, I say 'Do you take feminax' but even when I do their heads in I'm not taking the p*ss, I'm trying to include them. Some acts are but I don't want to be tarred with that brush, I'm not misogynist, f*ck off ... if you say to straight men right we're having fancy dress on they come with great big balloons and the wife's skirt and it's f*cking vile, but with gay men it'll be a bit more stylised, you know, smart. With a hat.
Are you playing a woman, or are you a drag queen, or an actress?
I don't know. It's weird. I don't change when I get the gear on. The things I talk about aren't the things a fella would talk about, but they're not really the things a drag queen would talk about, cause I'm on about me PMT and me coil, women's complaints, but they're blown up out of all proportion... I'm a professional, but what's a professional anyway, turning up on time or getting on a bit late and going down a storm. Some drag queens call themselves actors, and I know I've done a bit of Fringe stuff but if you've sold fruit and veg four times you don't call yourself a fruit and veg merchant. Drag queen I suppose I am. There's no way of getting round it, I'm just a drag queen. I don't set myself up to be a bird. I want to be a character, a cartoon character.
Do people treat you as a woman?
Oh yes, they come up and tell me everything, they come up with all sorts, I know more about broken affairs, who got this and who got that. It's nice, because people trust you, and they're very protective as well; if there's some trouble, if there's some straight who's p*ssed and who's starting, my god they get them out quick. And if I start the violence, a bit of verbal, you know if I kick off on somebody they love it, they go mental, and the same people, if I'm dressed as a man, they won't talk to me, that's the weird thing. I get so many people come up for a little chat because they feel they an talk to her., and I listen to it all then hit them over the head and tell them to f*ck off, and off they go, nothing maudling about it. lily says 'Can't you pay you leccy bill? oh f*ck, I'll come round and make a hole in your meter and shove a pin in', and I would and all. Shove the needle in and don't get caught. That's Liverpool for you. I was brought up with a needle in the meter. I could never open the door in case it was the telly man or the prudential. It's a joke. It's disgusting. All those pensioners who can only afford to have one bar on.
Is she you?
Lily is just me tarted up a bit. Tarted up a lot. If I get a bit stoned, out she comes with all the good advice, have a drink love and all that, that's just Lily. Basically it's just me being mental. three year with Camden Council did me head in. Of course Lily Savage isn't gay. She's got two kids. She did have lesbian tendencies years ago, I mean she's tried it. I never take me wig off. Never go into the pub unless I'm in full regalia, I can't stand all that take the make-up off and you're one of the boys.
Do you have a sexual relationship with your audience?
No way... those queens that can pass as women and all that they get straight fellas after them and all that. But the thought of going with a fella in drag... I mean when you get in bed and take the frock off, you've got two dirty great tits which is cotonwool, a pair of boots, eight pairs of tights and this enormous wig, I'm sure you're not going to have sex in all that. The only type of fellas I attract in drag is heavy masochists, they really want to be kicked around. I suppose it's the boots and riding crop. I just tell them to f*ck off. No way. I don't think Lily Savage is sexy. She thinks she is. But no way. No chance. Shame isn't it really. Tragic.
Does playing in drag ever feel like an act of revenge?
Yeah, it's delicious. Sitting up there and slating off what you hate, in a packed pub, saying things, bliss, and they're all cheering, and they all feel the same way, and you can feel it, and they just need somebody to say it, yeah, lovely, when you're on about some wally like that James Anderton, just pulling him down, and you've got like 200 people full of scorn and derision for this man, and you're at the helm, it's lovely. Being a drag queen you've got so much sh*t to face. F*cking hell.
Who are your idols?
I love jazz, me. George Melly. Nina Simone, people like that. I like Dame Edna, she makes me die, love her. I hate Cilla Black. Can't stand her. Can't bear her. I saw Dave Allen do Captain Hook in a panto, he got this kid down the front, this little boy and he says put out your hand, and he flicks his ciggy ash in it, and then says you can sit down now, and I thought oh god that's ace, that's really villainous doing that to a little child. I'll remember that. But I can't see Lily doing panto. All those ugly sister gags on Boxing Day in Wigan in front of a bunch of people you don't really like.
Does your mother know what you do for a living?
Oh god they don't even know of Lily's existence thank you very much, they're all Irish Catholics, it'd put them in hospital if they found out. I think she'd think I was humiliating myself by dragging up. She hates Danny la Rue on the telly. She likes Dame Edna but that's because she thinks she's a woman. I've told her it's all a p*sstake but she won't have it. 'Do'you hear our Paul's dressing up as a woman in London'. Oh heck, there'd be a posse of them straight down here on the coach.
Do you work differently if you're in a theatre instead of a club?
Well I'm going to do this bit at the National Theatre and, well, it's a play. That is a totally different thing. I feel totally safe, whatever happens, if the NF come in I think I'm safe because it's a play. It's a childish attitude. No one mentions drag at all, the character thing is asexual, also it's such a weird play. You can get away with murder in those places can't you?
Does it p*ss you off that the theatre makes your work as a drag respectable?
Well I went to see this play and I just went mental for it, it was so off the wall and so I thought f*ck it I'll have a go. It's something different, a break from the drag scene. I play a woman, but they just accept me as a character. If you got up and did your act you wouldn't be acceptable, do you know what I mean, that p*sses me off slightly, they're sitting there watching you but they wouldn't dream of going down a gay pub. Because it's called Fringe theatre its alright, you're legit and they say oh it's all acting and then ten minutes later you're in a taxi haring off down the road to do some pub in exactly the same outfit and you're a drag queen. It all confuses me, I can't understand it.
Where would you like to play?
I want to do a part on Brookside. I've got a friend in that. I'd be off like a shot.
Lily savage can be seen most weeks at various London pub and club venues, check gay press for details.