Following a series of acclaimed performances, ‘Drag Fabulist’ Dickie Beau takes his first major solo show Blackouts across the UK in 2015.
Conjuring the spirits of celebrated Hollywood icons in an innovative theatre experience, Dickie leads audiences on a bewitching adventure as he channels the ghosts of his childhood idols.
Dickie secured exclusive access to audio tapes of Marilyn Monroe’s final interview conducted by journalist Richard Meryman. Published in LIFE magazine just two days before her death, Blackouts includes material never before heard in the public domain. As well as this rare audio footage, segments creatively appropriated from Dickie’s own recordings with Richard Meryman also form part of the story. Blackouts sees Dickie shape-shift through a shadowy soundscape of lost souls in a sensational trip to the subconscious underworld of his future self; bringing to life these audio artefacts.
The show marks a significant development for Dickie’s trademark process of dissecting, then remembering (literally, putting back together and embodying), found sound. The digital script has been written entirely using this and incorporates much original source material, including the spellbinding Judy Speaks tapes – Judy Garland alone with a Dictaphone, making notes for a memoir never to be written. The resulting piece is a study of icons in exile from society and themselves, and the haunting impressions they’ve left behind.
Tour Dates:
Mayfest, Bristol Old Vic: Friday 15 & Saturday 16 May 9.30pm mayfestbristol.co.uk
Chichester Showroom: Thursday 24th September 7.30pm www.theshowroomchichester.co.uk
Further 2015 dates to be announced
