Year of the Queen: The Making of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - The Musical by Jeremy Stanford Page A
Authors: Jeremy Stanford
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reacting in case we have to start this process over. He asks again if I’m okay and I give the sign.
Next they drape plaster bandages all over my face which turns the hardened dental paste icy cold. I have two small straws sticking out of my nose to breathe with and the powdery smell of plaster instantly takes me back to high school craft. Once the bandages are placed, they’re secured by having my whole head wrapped in bandages. They don’t muck around either, sparing nothing to make my head feel like it’s three times its natural size. I must look like a mummy from a fifties horror movie. Well, at least I’m not out of place here.
The whole construction, which feels like a diving bell on my head, stays on for about half an hour. Since I’m incapable of conversation they leave me and go off to fool around with their other creatures. I can’t hear much but they seem to be having a good time doing something out in the workshop. Eventually they return and begin to release me. They cut at the bandages and painstakingly peel it all off. When the contraption is removed there seems to be nothing to show for my troubles. Just a strange soccer ball-like object that somewhere inside contains my likeness. I guess they’ll pour plaster into it and create an inanimate Jeremy, which will sit on a bench here, adding to their collection of creatures.
I clean myself up and make my way to the giant door to the sane outside world. As I go, I stumble upon the table with the collection of other heads made from the rest of the cast. My skin crawls. Even the members of the cast I know, look like strange cadaver versions of themselves. It’s all getting a little weird. Barely concealing my haste to leave, I thank the DEVO guys politely and slip out into the warming sunshine, where I look forward to not shivering anymore. As I leave this freak show, I want to check that nothing has followed me out and could now be waiting in the bushes to slip unnoticed into the cab, and eat me on the way to the airport.
It’s been quite a day. Consensually, I tried on my first dress and I was cloned. I’ve got lots to tell the kids.
Chapter 8
Drag Show
For around six weeks I’ve been trying to organize an expedition to a drag show. It’s only around the corner, for God’s sake. My dear friend Lily knows some of the girls there and has promised if I go with her that she’ll organize an introduction and for me to scout around backstage, watch the makeup going on and chat with the performers. She calls herself a ‘Queens’ consult’ in preference to ‘fag hag’, which she thinks misogynistic. But it takes six weeks for us to finally get a mutually acceptable date - a date which turns out to be the night before I leave to go to Sydney for rehearsals. I couldn’t forgive myself if I’d turned up on day one having done NO research at all, so I have to go. I’ve only ever seen one drag show before and it was through a cloud of alcohol after a Buddy show one night. I wouldn’t say it’s my hot choice for an evening’s entertainment, but in the context of research I’m chomping at the bit to go.
As it’s my last night with the family before I leave for Sydney tomorrow, I prepare a slap-up meal before I go out and we all sit down together with an air of formality and finality. I try to make it sink in, to Hunter at least, that Dad is going to go away to Sydney to work for a long time. To children who have only ever known a stay-at-home-Dad, this concept completely escapes them and they move the conversation back onto Sponge Bob Square Pants .
In the middle of dinner the phone rings and I get a breathless Ross Coleman on the line.
“Oh thank God you’re home” he quakes. “There’s been a disaster!”
My stomach sinks. Simon has died in an accident. The producers have gone broke. They’ve cast Garry Sweet in my role.
“I’m cooking a goose for Simon tonight and my oven has broken down”, he says.
No one else I know is capable
Next they drape plaster bandages all over my face which turns the hardened dental paste icy cold. I have two small straws sticking out of my nose to breathe with and the powdery smell of plaster instantly takes me back to high school craft. Once the bandages are placed, they’re secured by having my whole head wrapped in bandages. They don’t muck around either, sparing nothing to make my head feel like it’s three times its natural size. I must look like a mummy from a fifties horror movie. Well, at least I’m not out of place here.
The whole construction, which feels like a diving bell on my head, stays on for about half an hour. Since I’m incapable of conversation they leave me and go off to fool around with their other creatures. I can’t hear much but they seem to be having a good time doing something out in the workshop. Eventually they return and begin to release me. They cut at the bandages and painstakingly peel it all off. When the contraption is removed there seems to be nothing to show for my troubles. Just a strange soccer ball-like object that somewhere inside contains my likeness. I guess they’ll pour plaster into it and create an inanimate Jeremy, which will sit on a bench here, adding to their collection of creatures.
I clean myself up and make my way to the giant door to the sane outside world. As I go, I stumble upon the table with the collection of other heads made from the rest of the cast. My skin crawls. Even the members of the cast I know, look like strange cadaver versions of themselves. It’s all getting a little weird. Barely concealing my haste to leave, I thank the DEVO guys politely and slip out into the warming sunshine, where I look forward to not shivering anymore. As I leave this freak show, I want to check that nothing has followed me out and could now be waiting in the bushes to slip unnoticed into the cab, and eat me on the way to the airport.
It’s been quite a day. Consensually, I tried on my first dress and I was cloned. I’ve got lots to tell the kids.
Chapter 8
Drag Show
For around six weeks I’ve been trying to organize an expedition to a drag show. It’s only around the corner, for God’s sake. My dear friend Lily knows some of the girls there and has promised if I go with her that she’ll organize an introduction and for me to scout around backstage, watch the makeup going on and chat with the performers. She calls herself a ‘Queens’ consult’ in preference to ‘fag hag’, which she thinks misogynistic. But it takes six weeks for us to finally get a mutually acceptable date - a date which turns out to be the night before I leave to go to Sydney for rehearsals. I couldn’t forgive myself if I’d turned up on day one having done NO research at all, so I have to go. I’ve only ever seen one drag show before and it was through a cloud of alcohol after a Buddy show one night. I wouldn’t say it’s my hot choice for an evening’s entertainment, but in the context of research I’m chomping at the bit to go.
As it’s my last night with the family before I leave for Sydney tomorrow, I prepare a slap-up meal before I go out and we all sit down together with an air of formality and finality. I try to make it sink in, to Hunter at least, that Dad is going to go away to Sydney to work for a long time. To children who have only ever known a stay-at-home-Dad, this concept completely escapes them and they move the conversation back onto Sponge Bob Square Pants .
In the middle of dinner the phone rings and I get a breathless Ross Coleman on the line.
“Oh thank God you’re home” he quakes. “There’s been a disaster!”
My stomach sinks. Simon has died in an accident. The producers have gone broke. They’ve cast Garry Sweet in my role.
“I’m cooking a goose for Simon tonight and my oven has broken down”, he says.
No one else I know is capable
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