Bloolips

Bloolips was a radical gay drag theatre company founded in London in 1977 by actor and activist Bette Bourne (born Peter Bourne, 1939–2024) together with performer Lavinia Co-op. Operating for over two decades, the company combined political satire, musical comedy, tap dancing and outrageous costume in productions that challenged gender, sexuality and establishment power. They performed extensively across the UK and internationally, and became one of the most celebrated gay performance troupes of the 1970s–90s.

Origins

Bette Bourne founded Bloolips after performing with the New York-based radical drag collective Hot Peaches in 1976 — a company that included activist Marsha P. Johnson. Returning to London, Bourne co-founded Bloolips with Lavinia Co-op in 1977 as a reaction against theatrical elitism and as an expression of gay liberation politics. The company operated as a financial cooperative rather than a conventional producing company, with all members sharing in the economics of the work.

The name reflected the company's playful anarchy. Members performed under camp stage names: alongside Bourne and Lavinia Co-op, the company over its lifetime included Precious Pearl, Diva Dan, Gretel Feather, Dizzy Danny and Naughty Nickers. Bourne's own role within the company was sometimes billed as Bossy Bette.

Style and performances

Bloolips rejected the conventions of both mainstream theatre and female impersonation. Their costumes were built from salvaged materials — mop heads, charity shop finds, broken lampshades and plastic laundry baskets — creating a deliberately homemade aesthetic rooted in Pierrot and music hall traditions rather than glamour. The performances drew on tap dancing, close-harmony singing, and comedic precision: despite appearing deliberately chaotic on stage, scripts were tightly crafted by playwright Jon Taylor to maximise comic effect.

The company's politics were explicit. Bloolips "were hitting out at the far right, especially the religious right," using camp and drag as instruments of liberation rather than entertainment alone. Their influence ran from 1920s Hollywood and Broadway through to the radical gender politics of the Gay Liberation Front.

Productions

Bloolips created thirteen shows between 1978 and the mid-1990s:

Cheek! (1978)
The Ugly Duckling (1978–79)
Vamp and Camp (1979)
Lust in Space (1980–82)
Yum Yum (1983)
Odds 'n' Sods (1983–84)
Sticky Buns (1983–84)
Living Leg-Ends (1985)
Slung Back and Strapless (1986–87)
Teenage Trash (1987–88)
Gland Motel (1988–90)
Get Hur (1993)
The Island of Lost Shoes (1995)

Venues

Bloolips performed across London and on UK tour, with key venues including The Tabernacle in Notting Hill (where they staged their first show in August 1978), the Drill Hall Theatre in Bloomsbury, the Oval House Theatre in Kennington, Hackney Empire, and Hampstead Town Hall. The Drill Hall Theatre became a particularly significant home for the company and for radical gay theatre more broadly during the 1980s.

Internationally, Bloolips toured to Amsterdam, The Hague, Berlin and, notably, New York (from 1980 onwards), where Lust in Space played at the Orpheum Theatre off-Broadway to sold-out houses. New York Times critic Mel Gussow noted that the company "tap-dance with clattering precision, harmonize on old sounding tunes and never forget the parodistic nature of their endeavour."

The Drill Hall Arts Centre

The Drill Hall Theatre at 16 Chenies Street, London WC1, was one of the most important venues in British LGBT theatrical history. Originally a Victorian military drill hall, it became an arts centre and developed a close relationship with gay and feminist theatre from the late 1970s onwards, eventually establishing itself as the leading LGBT-specialist performance venue in the country.

Bloolips were among the most prominent companies to perform there, and the Drill Hall under successive directors provided a home for work that could find no platform in mainstream subsidised theatre. The Arts Council withdrew funding in 2008, and in 2012 RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) took over the building, which now operates as RADA Studios.

AIDS crisis and disbanding

The AIDS crisis hit Bloolips directly. Diva Dan died of AIDS in 1988, and the epidemic profoundly marked the company's later work. The company continued into the mid-1990s before disbanding.

Recognition

Bloolips won an Obie Award in 1980 for the New York production of Lust in Space, including recognition for outstanding costumes. A documentary film, Bloolips (1993), captured performances and cast interviews.

Bette Bourne

Bette Bourne went on to a distinguished subsequent career in theatre, winning Obie Awards in 1991 and 2001 and a Clarence Derwent Award in 2003 for The Vortex. He was widely celebrated for his portrayal of Quentin Crisp. He died in Notting Hill on 23 August 2024, aged 84.