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In 2009, Bourne talked about his life in ''A Life in Three Acts'' at the [[Traverse Theatre]], Edinburgh, a staged reading of transcripts of conversations with playwright [[Mark Ravenhill]].<ref name=fabulous>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/aug/23/bette-bourne-mark-ravenhill | location=London | work=The Guardian | first=Mark | last=Ravenhill | title=The fabulous life of Bette Bourne | date=23 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=11 December 2011 |title=How We Met: Mark Ravenhill & Bette Bourne | first = Adam | last = Jacques |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/how-we-met-mark-ravenhill-bette-bourne-6273529.html |access-date=9 November 2022 |newspaper=The Independent |language=en}}</ref>
In 2009, Bourne talked about his life in ''A Life in Three Acts'' at the [[Traverse Theatre]], Edinburgh, a staged reading of transcripts of conversations with playwright [[Mark Ravenhill]].<ref name=fabulous>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/aug/23/bette-bourne-mark-ravenhill | location=London | work=The Guardian | first=Mark | last=Ravenhill | title=The fabulous life of Bette Bourne | date=23 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=11 December 2011 |title=How We Met: Mark Ravenhill & Bette Bourne | first = Adam | last = Jacques |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/how-we-met-mark-ravenhill-bette-bourne-6273529.html |access-date=9 November 2022 |newspaper=The Independent |language=en}}</ref>


In 2013, Bette and Paul Shaw gave a special retrospective performance titled ''A Right Pair'', charting their journey through show business with monologues and turns from selected productions over the past 40 years.<ref>{{cite news| magazine= Vada Magazine | date = 8 February 2013 | url = https://vadamagazine.com/entertainment/arts/review-a-right-pair | title= Review: A Right Pair}}</ref>
In 2013, Bette and Paul Shaw gave a special retrospective performance titled ''A Right Pair'', charting their journey together over 40 years with monologues and turns from selected productions.<ref name=pair>{{cite web | access-date = 1 September 2024 | website = What's on Stage | url= https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/a-right-pair-the-marlborough-theatre-brighton_4418/ | date =7 May 2012 | title = A Right Pair (The Marlborough Theatre, Brighton) }}</ref>


In 2022, Bette appeared alongside Pearl/Paul as the Queen at Duckie's Alternative Royal Command event held at the [[Queen Elizabeth Hall]], part of the [[Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II|Platinum Jubilee]] celebrations.{{cn|date=August 2024}}
In 2022, Bette appeared alongside Pearl/Paul as the Queen at Duckie's Alternative Royal Command event held at the [[Queen Elizabeth Hall]], part of the [[Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II|Platinum Jubilee]] celebrations.{{cn|date=August 2024}}

Revision as of 02:26, 2 September 2024

Bette Bourne
Bourne in 2010
Born
Peter Bourne

(1939-09-22)22 September 1939
Hackney, London, England
Died23 August 2024(2024-08-23) (aged 84)
Notting Hill, London, England
EducationCentral School of Speech and Drama
OccupationActor
Years active1943–2022
Notable workThe Vortex, Donmar Warehouse, 2002
FamilyMike Berry (brother)
AwardsClarence Derwent Award 2003, OBIE Award for Performance (2001, 1991), Manchester Evening News Award

Bette Bourne (born Peter Bourne,[1] 22 September 1939 – 23 August 2024) was a British actor, drag queen, campaigner, and activist. His theatrical career spanned six decades. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s when he joined the New York-based alternative gay cabaret troupe Hot Peaches on a tour of Europe and then founded his own alternative London-based gay theatrical company, Bloolips.

Early life

Peter Bourne was born in Hackney, East London,[2] into a working-class family. He had two sisters and a brother (actor and singer Mike Berry). His mother was an amateur actress.[3] Bourne made his stage debut at the age of four with Madame Behenna and her Dancing Children[4] performing at Stoke Newington Town Hall where he sang "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree". The first play he remembers seeing was a production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the early 1950s, although he had an interest in acting before that.[3] His father was indifferent to his son's acting aspirations. When Bourne was 16, he did a three-month apprenticeship as a printmaker. He then worked in journalism at the New Scientist. Bourne began his theatre career working as a stagehand.[3]

1960s performances

Bette Bourne (left) with other original GLF activists at a 40th anniversary celebration in the LSE.

Bourne studied drama at London's Central School of Speech and Drama in Swiss Cottage.[3] In the 1960s he appeared in the TV series Dixon of Dock Green, The Avengers, and The Prisoner.[5] In 1969, he appeared alongside Sir Ian McKellen in a touring double bill of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II.[2]

Activism and cabaret career

In the 1970s, feeling disillusioned with show business, Bourne put his acting career on hold to become an activist with the Gay Liberation Front.[6] He became a part of the infamous gay commune based in Colville Terrace in Notting Hill, London.[2] During this period, Bourne started wearing drag and changed his name to 'Bette'.[citation needed] Bourne recalled how the early participation of men in drag in a public demonstration in the early 1970s disturbed more traditional civil rights advocates: "A lot of the queens were very afraid of us because we were disobeying the rules in some deep way and scaring them. People got very frightened. We weren’t frightening at all. But it was much stronger than anything they were doing. It was also about a sense of humour or not. Wearing the dresses was great fun as well. It certainly was for me."[7]

In 1976, Bourne joined the New York-based gay cabaret troupe Hot Peaches on a European tour that culminated in a show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.[2] Bourne remained there when the troupe returned to New York City.

Bloolips

In London Bourne founded a gay musical comedy company, Bloolips, in which men performed all the roles. He later said his inspiration for the company came from "a record he found on one of the junk stalls on Portobello Market of Jean Metcalfe reading (in her very best BBC voice) the story of The Ugly Duckling. It was the perfect Coming Out story, and thus Bloolips was born."[8] The company employed the scriptwriter John Taylor (Jon Jon) to write many of the company's productions. Ray Dobbins wrote some of the scripts later on in the troupe's career. Satirical political comedy was combined with tap dancing and singing, with the men in clown-like costumes rather than in female attire or as female impersonators. The shows drew heavily on the glamour of the 1920s and 1930s golden era of Hollywood and Broadway theatre. They were staged, produced, and directed in the vaudeville tradition with Bourne cast as the leading lady. The scenery and costumes were designed to look tawdry and down-at-heel, to imply the company was on its last legs. The actors made their own costumes on a limited budget "out of plastic laundry baskets, broken lampshades, and tat from second-hand shops, sometimes using mops as wigs".[9]

All the shows featured original songs or adaptations of well-known numbers. One of their most memorable adaptations was of "We're in The Money" (from the movie Gold Diggers of 1933). Some of their more notable original songs included "Let's Scream Our Tits Off", "I'm Mad About Leisure", "B.A.N.A.N.A.S.", "I Want to Be Bad", and "I'd Love to Dance the Tango but My Suit Says No". Many of the show's themes and titles were adapted from famous movies, including Lust in Space, Gland Hotel, Get Hur, and The Ugly Duckling. The sense of humour and comedy was in the Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder style. With Bloolips, Bourne's traditional theatrical training came into its own; his onstage delivery and timing were impeccable. "The first Bloolips rehearsals were done in my flat in Notting Hill, seven of us tap dancing in a line. One afternoon we went downstairs for a coffee, and the ceiling had fallen in," Bourne told The Guardian in 2005.[2] Bloolips premiered their first show at The Tabernacle, Notting Hill, in Powis Square in August 1978 and were, according to Bourne, "a sensation".[8] It became a regular practice for the troupe to premiere their productions at The Tabernacle to benefit the local community.[citation needed]

Bloolips performed in New York in 1980, opening off-off Broadway at the New City Theater, moving to the off-Broadway Orpheum Theatre, and closing in June 1981.[8] Its production of Lust in Space won the OBIE Award for best costumes.[10] Bourne vividly recollects his first visit to New York with Bloolips in a ‘Letter from Bette Bourne’ written to the artist Francie Lyshak, in which he recounts the excitement and vibrancy of the city in the early ‘80s and how hospitable the local gay community, and New Yorkers as a whole, were towards them. Lavinia Co-op also gives an account of the same period in an interview with Lyshak.[11] The New York Times critic Mel Gussow lavished praise on Lust in Space and the cast of six: "Bloolips are bizarrely funny. It's not what you do, but how you do it. They tap-dance with clattering precision, harmonize on old sounding tunes and never forget the parodistic nature of their endeavour, imitating everyone from dim-witted ingenues to flamboyant femmes fatales."[12] The Bloolips company toured the UK and Europe throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They enjoyed tremendous success in America, where on several occasions they starred off-Broadway in New York and won two OBIE Awards, including one for their New York production of Lust in Space, where it ran for nine months. A two-month season in San Francisco followed.[citation needed]

In 1993 one reviewer wrote: "If Busby Berkeley had concocted a musical about Ancient Rome and cast it with English music-hall comics who love to dress up like chorines, it might look like Get Hur."[13]

The original core members of Bloolips were Bette Bourne, Lavinia Co-op, Precious Pearl, Diva Dan, and Gretel Feather. Between 1977 and 1994, there were around 25 members in the troupe.[9]

Bloolips shows

Bloolips performed 13 shows before disbanding in 1998. These included:

  • The Ugly Duckling (1978–79)
  • Cheek! (1978)
  • 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 Hotel (1988–90)
  • Get Hur (1993)
  • The Island of Lost Shoes (1995)

In 1988, Bloolips toured Canada, visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Ottawa in a Best of Bloolips production.[14]

A documentary movie shot in New York City in 1993 and titled Bloolips contains footage of the troupe performing Get Hur, as well as backstage footage and interviews with Bourne and other members of the cast.[15]

Acting career

In 1990, Bourne and Precious Pearl (Paul Shaw) appeared with Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw in Belle Reprieve, which Bourne and Shaw had a hand in writing. The play was produced by Split Britches and performed in London, New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle.[16] The show won an OBIE Award for Ensemble Production in 1991.[17] In the New York Times, a reviewer dismissed the show's claim to be a "musical sendup" of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and wrote that it was a cabaret act that referenced that play "only as a point of departure" and "there is little to connect the two works, even as a takeoff". He praised some of the musical numbers–"another number in which three paper lanterns do a tap dance is lively"–but judged the show "sophomoric" with "little originality". He noted the four actors' "energy".[18]

In 1991, he appeared as the 250-year-old Zambinella in Neil Bartlett and Nick Bloomfield's production of Sarrasine at New York's Dance Theater Workshop. Stephen Holden called it a "bravura performance" and described Bourne as "a phantasmal apotheosis of a renegade erotic spirit, at once a ruined (though regal) grand dame and a sad clown".[19] He reprised that role at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1996.[20]

In 1997, Bourne performed in New York City in a production of Ray Dobbins' one-man show East of Eadie. The New York Times reviewer found much to criticize but thought Bourne had "some excellent material" and "gives the impression of being able to charm by just standing there". She praised Bourne's "splendid Noel Coward imitation" singing "Why Must the Frock Go On?" and the lines he delivered in a "wonderful, deep Tallulah-like voice".[21] That same year Bourne won a Manchester Evening News award for his performance as Lady Bracknell in the English Touring Theatre production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.[22]

In 1998, Bourne and Paul Shaw visited the US with a best of Bloolips production tilted Bloo Revue: A Bloolips Retrospectacle, "in an extremely loopy vein", said one glowing review.[23][24]

In 1999, Bourne played his friend Quentin Crisp in Tim Fountain's play, Resident Alien, at London's Bush Theatre.[25] The production toured widely and played in New York City and Sydney.[citation needed] Ben Brantley described its New York incarnation as "a compilation of wit, wisdom and reminiscence, delivered by an elderly person for whom personal style is a life force" and praised Bourne for "a performance that sweetens clinical observation with beneath-the-skin empathy".[26] Bourne's work received an OBIE for performance.[27]

At Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2001, Bourne won a Herald Award for his portrayal of Crisp.[28] Fountain wrote two more plays for Bourne: H-O-T-B-O-I, which was produced at the Soho Theatre in 2004,[29] and Rock in 2008.[30]

Bourne was part of the Donmar Warehouse production of Noël Coward's The Vortex in 2002,[31] for which he won the Clarence Derwent Award.[citation needed] In 2005, he appeared in Read My Hips at London's Drill Hall, playing the gay 20th-century Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy.[32]

He worked with Bartlett again at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2003, as the narrator in a production of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre starring Will Keen.[33] More Shakespeare followed in 2004 when Bourne played the nurse in Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare's Globe.[34]

In 2005 at the Royal National Theatre Bourne was in Improbable Theatre's stage adaptation of the film Theatre of Blood.[35] For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bourne played Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at London's Novello Theatre in 2007. Variety's David Benedict wrote that the director dealt with the "usually unfunny" character by casting Bourne, who "plays marvelously high-status as a doddering gay captain of the guard and savors every last syllable of his character's language-mangling to high comic effect".[36]

That same year Bourne worked with the playwright Mark Ravenhill on a short play, Ripper, staged at the Union Theatre in London. Bourne played the role of Queen Victoria.[37]

In 2009, Bourne talked about his life in A Life in Three Acts at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, a staged reading of transcripts of conversations with playwright Mark Ravenhill.[5][38]

In 2013, Bette and Paul Shaw gave a special retrospective performance titled A Right Pair, charting their journey together over 40 years with monologues and turns from selected productions.[39]

In 2022, Bette appeared alongside Pearl/Paul as the Queen at Duckie's Alternative Royal Command event held at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.[citation needed]

Tributes and death

In 2014, Bourne featured in a documentary film about his life and work, It Goes with the Shoes, written and directed by Mark Ravenhill.[40]

In 2019, an exhibition celebrating the legacy of Bloolips, In Pictures: Bloolips and the Empowering Joy of Dressing Up, was mounted at Platform Southwark in London.[41]

Bourne died at his home in Notting Hill, London, on 23 August 2024, at the age of 84.[42]

Acting credits

Theatre

Film

  • Caught Looking (1991) – Narrator
  • A Little Bit of Lippy (1992) – Venus Lamour
  • My Summer Vacation (1996) - English interviewee
  • Chéri (2009) - Baronne
  • Macbeth (2013) - as Porter
  • It Goes with the Shoes (2014) - as himself

Television

References

  1. ^ Megson, Chris (24 May 2012). Modern British Playwriting: The 1970s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. A&C Black. pp. 81–. ISBN 9781408129395. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  2. ^ a b c d e Smith, Rupert (5 December 2005). "Straight theatre is all fake". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 April 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d e Bourne, Bette (26 February 2004). "The Skin of our Teeth, Young Vic, 2004" (Interview). Interviewed by Howard Loxton. Retrieved 31 August 2024 – via Rogues & Vagabonds.
  4. ^ a b c Loxton, Howard. "A Life in Three Acts". British Theatre Guild. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  5. ^ a b Ravenhill, Mark (23 August 2009). "The fabulous life of Bette Bourne". The Guardian. London.
  6. ^ "Bette Bourne". Unfinished Histories. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  7. ^ "Gay veterans from 1970s will lead 2020 Pride march". QX Magazine. 18 June 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  8. ^ a b c Hudson, David (19 July 2019). "What is 'radical drag' and who were Bloolips?". Gay Star News. Archived from the original on 20 July 2019.
  9. ^ a b "Lavinia Co-op on how the Bloolips brought radical drag to the mainstream - and the Hackney Empire". Hackney Gazette (Interview). 14 March 2018. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  10. ^ "Negro Ensemble Wins an OBIE". New York Times. 2 June 1981. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  11. ^ "Bar-02_Lavinia Coop | Francie Lyshak". francielyshak.com. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  12. ^ Gussow, Mel (14 May 1981). "Is the Theater All a Juggling Act?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  13. ^ Berson, Misha (15 January 1993). "Camping It Up with Bloolips". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  14. ^ "Bloolips Archive". Bishopsgate Institute. Retrieved 1 September 2024. Catalogued by Barbara Vesey, November 2017 and February 2018
  15. ^ Kasino, Michael (director) (1993). BLOOLIPS (Motion picture). Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  16. ^ "Belle Reprieve". Split Britches. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  17. ^ "1990s". OBIE Awards. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  18. ^ Hampton, Wilborn (11 March 1991). "A Sendup of 'Streetcar'". New York Times. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  19. ^ Holden, Stephen (9 September 1991). "'Sarrasine': Sexuality and Illusion". New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  20. ^ a b Taylor, Paul (19 September 1996). "Theatre Sarrasine Lyric, Hammersmith". The Independent. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  21. ^ a b Gates, Anita (19 May 1997). "Madness, With Slides". New York Times. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  22. ^ Loki, Reynard (17 November 2008). "Bette Bourne Returns to the London Stage in Fountain's RESIDENT ALIENT". Broadway World. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  23. ^ Hughes, David-Edward (25 February 1998). "Seattle's on The Board Imports Bloo Revue from U.K." Playbill.
  24. ^ Marks, Peter (13 June 1998). "Beginning With Chickens and Ending With Eggs". New York Times. Retrieved 1 September 2024. Some of the best gags fly on the flimsiest premises, as, for instance, when Bette, with the help of his dressers, suits up as Marie Antoinette to the strains of the 1812 Overture.
  25. ^ Jackson, Kate (12 December 2001). "Resident Alien". What's on Stage. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  26. ^ Brantley, Ben (19 January 2001). "Bringing an Eccentric Old Friend Back for an Encore". New York Times. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  27. ^ "2000s". OBIE Awards. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  28. ^ "Thumbs up for the Bourne supremacy". The Herald. 31 August 2009.
  29. ^ a b Hutera, Donald (22 November 2004). "H O T B O I/Us". The Times. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  30. ^ a b Burston, Paul (26 May 2008). "Bette Bourne is between a Rock and hard place". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  31. ^ a b Billington, Michael (11 December 2002). "The Vortex". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  32. ^ a b Hutera, Donald (16 December 2005). "Theatre: Read my hips". The Times. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  33. ^ a b Billington, Michael (25 September 2003). "Pericles, Lyric Hammersmith, London". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  34. ^ a b Spencer, Charles (21 May 2004). "If only Juliet had been a boy..." The Telegraph. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  35. ^ a b "Theatre of Blood". Improbable. Archived from the original on 10 April 2008.
  36. ^ a b Benedict, David (20 December 2006). "Much Ado About Nothing". Variety. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  37. ^ Ravenhill, Mark (14 October 2007). "Sometimes nothing's scarier than a bit of sponge and rubber tubing soaked in stage blood". The Guardian. London.
  38. ^ Jacques, Adam (11 December 2011). "How We Met: Mark Ravenhill & Bette Bourne". The Independent. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  39. ^ "A Right Pair (The Marlborough Theatre, Brighton)". What's on Stage. 7 May 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  40. ^ Felperin, Leslie (13 February 2014). "Bette Bourne: It Goes With the Shoes – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  41. ^ Burns, Sean (15 July 2019). "In Pictures: Bloolips and the Empowering Joy of Dressing Up". Frieze. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  42. ^ Hannay, Mark L. (29 August 2024). "English "Radical Drag" Actor and Gay Rights Activist, Beloved by Downtown New York Theater Audiences, Dies at Age 84". Stage Voices. Retrieved 30 August 2024.
  43. ^ Taylor, Paul (31 May 1996). "Theatre: Funeral Games, Drill Hall, London". The Independent. Retrieved 25 August 2024.
  44. ^ Mooney, Lauren (22 September 2013). "The Lightning Child". Exeunt Magazine. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
Additional sources
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