DIVINE INTERVENTION

CHLOE POEMS CHEWS THE FAT WITH THE DIVINE DAVID
for Flux magazine

You may Have seen him at this year's Mardi Gras firing well aimed bullets at such sacred cows as gay stereotypes and the cozy, but somehow over eager, embrace by the establishment af gay culture. "I had to sleigh a few scared cows even before I reached the stage". Conversely you may have spotted him through a late night haze on his bizarre Chanel Four arts show 'The Divine David Presents'. He's a hard man to track down. He has no telephone, doesn't frequent the endless soirees about town and isn't falling over himself to cozy up to the media. Divine David is more likely to be found feeding the feathered friends that visit him at his palatial suite in the leafy suburb af Whalley Range. We asked a similarly sharp tongued performer, Chloe Poems, to cross swords with one of the masters.

THE DIVINE DAVID REAL
CHLOE: Well here we are in Velvet and I'm sitting here with my lovely friend, David, and I'd like to ask David a few questions. Firstly I'd like to ask you, David, why you've returned to the wonderful city of Manchester from London?
DAVID: Well I'd say that I'd never went away. I've always maintained a home up here. I lived in a bedsit in Whalley Range and I've kept that on. I do think there is a point to living in the north of England particularly Lancashire.
C: Well saying Lancashire brings me to an interesting point David. I hear that you might be opening a new club, perhaps entitled 'Lancashire'. Is there any reason for this, why are you doing this?
D: Well I'm hoping to lift awareness and start a campaign for a Greater Lancashire. When we think of Lancashire of yore, we remember the great ports of Manchester and Liverpool, and I just think it would be nice to lift the profile of Lancashire. I shall not actually be calling my club 'Lancashire' although there will be a pro Lancashire theme running all the way through it. I'm going to call it the 'Divine David Real.'
C: That's a lovely title.
D: There wilI be a questlon mark after the 'real' of course.

THE KILLER PUNCH
C: What do you think, David, about the fact that some people, I've been told, see us as bitter rivals?
D: There does seem to bea propensity within gay culture that if there are two artistes then people rather like it if they are at loggerheods and having stupid catty feuds, that sort of thing. Personally I think it's rather old fashioned and cooperation really is the way forward. I accept that in many ways you are talented.,.
C: Thank you very much
D: ...and I find no threat within you or what you attempt to do in any way, shape a form. I  know you've had  your successes, in Hay and Wye. You've attended a couple of literary festivals. Indeed Chloe when one thinks of you and your carrer, unless you get the Times Literary Supplement, one doesn't really know what work you're doing from one week to the next. (Laughter).

WHAT TO WEAR WHEN NIPPING OUT FOR A PINT OF MILK
C:I think maybe it's because some people see us nothing more than frilly drag monsters. Do you nave an opinion on this?
D: Yes, well I think this is one of the things that created the cement within our relationship, sweet Chloe, we both share a similar frustration in as much as we are both costumed performers, although I only wear on stage what I would during the day when maybe nipping out for a pint of milk. Of course people, rather than dwell on our rather more esoteric, eclectic work will seize on the costume and the make up and for their own convenience just ram it into that slag heap known as drag!

DUMBING DOWN...
C: Do you think it would sometimes be easier if we just become drag queens?
D: Yes I do and I'm thinking of actually going that way. I think that if that's the way they want it then it really does behold me to go out of my way and to metamorphosise into something that's a little bit easier for them to digest.
C: Yes. I'm having leanings that way too David. I feel I need to, I don't know, perhaps express myself in a little less intelligent way, to say less, to do less, but to wear more.
D: I'm hoping to get to the stage where I won't ever utter another live word onstage ever again, that all my work will be mime. When it comes to words I think I've said all the things I wanted to say. Indeed some of the things I've said have made people feel uncomfortable and I'm very, very sorry about that and I think now that I should go more traditional drag. Start to pad out, which is something I've never done before. And lampoon women. I'm hoping that will make me more acceptable.
C: Yes I feel the same urges really.
D: I want to be respectable and If that means lampooning and ridiculing women, who to me represent the source of life, then so be it. Anything really to allow my career to carry on.

THE LOVE BOAT
C: Are you hoping for the dizzy heights, perhaps a royal variety show, that sort of thing?
D: Yes, yes but I would also like to do perhaps three months in Benidorm. I would accept a hotel engagement and I was wondering, sweet Chloe, what you thought of the idea of you know, doubling up and working together? Perhaps do a cruise maybe around Norway, the fjords or perhaps some islands, Perhaps towards the bottom of Turkey.
C: Ummm yes it'd be a great honour to double up with a drag artiste of your calibre. It would be wonderful.
D: I think that if we doubled up together we could have something quite successful on our hands. One thinks immediately of the Sister Sledge and the great forays they made into the drag arena.
C: Plug and Socket were very good I seem to remember. What were those two old ladies that made it onto TV?
D: Hinge and Bracket?
C: They were very good weren't they?
D: Yes I want to go more that way.
C: Yes I do I have a very fine alto so we wouldn't have to lip sync too much.

HIS FEATHERED FRIENDS
C: Where were you born yourself?
D: Blackpool. A small seaside fishing village in the north of England.
C: Do you go back there much?
D: Not often no, but when I do it's very nice. I like the sea.
C: You were saying the other day about ornithology.
D: Yes. Birds mean a lot to me. You look at a bird and you think, 'I wonder what that would feel like', and you try to imagine. At the moment I'm noticing a lot of blue tits although there were some long tail tits, which are very nice, and wrens and dunnocks and a robin. And also, funnily enough, a jay or popinjay, as it's been known (quite a magical bird, a member of the crow family), and I'm seeing that almost one daily basis at the moment and to me it appears almost tame - we have established eye contact. I make a point of feeding the squirrels and the birds in the winter months believing that this act works at a form of insurance for me once we go into spring and summer when one can be light headed and a bit more hedonistic.

I AM THE DIVINE DAVID..
D: There will be a performance at the nightclub which commences 28th January at the 'Beat Box' although people must feel free to call it 'The Dirt Box'. Hopefully it will undergo a name change in the time of my residency there.
C: Will it be a weekly engagement?
D: Yes, it will be weekly. I'm hoping to create an environment where if people want to get up and say something (perhaps like yourself, a poem, something inoffensive like that, some trifle) the people can feel free to do that. I do think it is very incumbent upon me bearing in mind that I am THE Divine David.
C: A minor question - I know it's quite important in the clubbing scene. Have you sorted auto music policy?
D: Yes I've worked very closely with a gentleman DJ called Father Cloth. He works as my musical director and he will help me very much with the music which will have a very contemporaneous feel to it but there will be references to the whole surfeit of rock and roll and other nice sounds. One can go to any old bar and listen to the same old shit. A lot of gay people believe that it's inherent within the sexuality that they only can like one type of music which just isn't true and I want to offer an alternative.
C: So your club night - is it ongoing or is it a limited run?
D: Yes, it will be a limited run. I aIway think that when you're running a club you should give it the sort of energy that one should expect from any nightclub that takes money oft you. And to keep the energy at the level that I demand, means that none of my clubs run indefinitely. The whole evening is an art event - as soon as one enters the environment it's a complete creative cavern where there will be visual and aural works, an evening where all the senses are satisfied.
C: Well thank you very much Divine David.
D: Is that all you've got to say?
C: That's all I've got to say.

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