THE DIVINE DAVID
VIVA 5 APATHY, THE ROYAL VAUXHALL TAVERN, WEDNESDAYS 9pm-1am

Mark Simpson/The Guardian

Last year a one-man avant-garde whirlwind arrived on the London alternative
cabaret circuit.  Looking and sounding like Bette Davies meets Iggy Pop (and
drinks him under the table) he proclaimed the death of drag and traditional
crowd-pleasing en-ter-tain-ment.  Oh yes, and the redundancy of sexuality
and gender as well.

'Remember!' he would howl at the audience, after some crazed portrait
painting or singing Bowies Heroes in the style of Tommy Steele, 'you may be
standing there feeling very proud of yourself for being "a man" or "a woman"
, "a straight" or "a', (spitting this word out like a piece of four-day old
mince he found lodged between his teeth), 'gay" but you've all got something
in common, something much more certain than any of these fragile illusions.
You're all going to die!!  Now,' he'd add softly, 'isn't that lovely, ladies
and gentlemen?  Doesn't that give you a warm feeling inside?'

But now The Divine David has decided that this isn't the kind of thing that
the punters want.  The embodiment of the avant-garde after the death of the
avant-garde, the zombie Spirit of Humanity that used to urge audiences not
to go to work or pay any bills has gone corporate.  A glossy colour leaflet
advertises his latest show, Viva 5 Apathy, with pictures of smiling people
in suits clutching lap-tops at board-meetings and includes a statement from
the President, The Divine DavidTM, about how market research has convinced
him that what is needed is a more consumer-led product.  'This time,' he
concludes, 'it's corporate!'  (Although this sensible mission statement is
undermined slightly by a photo on the last page depicting The Divinely
Skinny One snapped from behind in a pair of purple nylon briefs, looking
over his shoulder, sloppily-lipsticked lips parted, coquettishly mouthing an
ironic 'Oh!'.)

At the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, now re-named the Royal Vauxhall Conference
Centre, Jay Cloth, The Divine David's delectable-yet-efficient secretary and
receptionist, takes your money (£3 waged/£3.50 unwaged), issues you with a
name badge and does a spot of niche-market research, showing you some flash
cards featuring fire, ambulance, police and mountain rescue and asking 'Have
you used any of these services recently?'

The Vauxhall Tavern is a perfect venue for the Divine David's reinvention of
himself.  Built in the mid-nineteenth century as a music-hall venue, after
the Second World War it became a drag pub.  In the seventies disco lights,
black paint and a dj booth was added and it became a gay drag pub.
Corinthian columns, flaking paint and a century of tobacco smoke, alcohol
fumes and rowdy, anarchic performance reaches its apotheosis and nadir in
The Divine David.

Except, of course, he's now gone corporate.  'I've learnt that people want
entertainment' he announces when he finally steps out onto the stage,
wearing a business-like mauve woolen twin-set with padded shoulders Herman
Munster would have envied.  'Audiences don't want anything that will stretch
them a bit.  There's going to be none of that avant garde rubbish tonight.
None of you need go home tonight to your rented accomodation feeling stupid.
'  He then performs accapella quite the most disturbing version of 'You Made
Me Love You' - so inane that it takes on meanings you never wanted to think
about before.

Entertainment over, David conducts a flipchart seminar on how to 'make a go
of it' in business.  'First,' he says, all schoolmarmish, 'you take your
self,' and writes 'SELF' at the top of the chart.  'And then you get rid of
that.'  He strikes the word through.  'And you become a what?  Does anybody
know?'  'A cunt!' shouts out a drunken Scottish voice.  'Yes, a cunt that's
right.'  He writes 'CUNT'.  'And what do you end up in?' 'A fookin
nightmare!' shouts the jock.  'A nightmare, exactly,' agrees David, writing
'= A NIGHTMARE'.  'Does everyone see how that works?  That's lovely.'

The Divine David, corporate or avant-garde, doesn't have much time for
sentimentality.  At one point he declares his support for Tracy Edwards:
'Any woman who kills a man is a friend of mine.'

A little later he ruminates: 'When I'm at a garden party or some such social
occasion, people often come up to me and say, "Oh, David, there's a gay over
here, you must meet him."  And I say, "Oh a gay, I know all about that.
That's about gristle up your shitter - if memory serves me right....  Yes,
bring them over here and we'll talk about my favourite gay - Andrew
Cunanan..."'

Not very fond of 'men' or 'gays', The Divine David has what some might call
a certain distance on his predicament.  Others, of course, will accuse him
of 'self-hatred'.  But the whole point of The Divine David is drama and
conflict, a refusal to become what you are supposed to be, a refusal to
relax into identity, into niche markets and corporate/corporal values, into
predictability.

So before the second half of his performance, we hear him announce over the
p.a.: 'Ladies und gentlemen, I've a confession to make.  I'm terribly sorry,
but I've gone avant garde again!'  Out he prances on stage in an alarming
vented black body-suit, stretched over his gangly frame and his head,
leaving a mad little oval of smeared red lips and melting mascara eyes. To
the tune of a disco rhumba he then dances and mimes in a delightfully
demented way with a couple of hoops, including an hilarious wheelchair
moment straight out of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

The Divine David is back - quite the scariest, funniest, smartest, truest,
noblest thing you can see for three quid.  Invest now.

© Mark Simpson May 1998

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