Nigel Farage wouldn’t enjoy Giselle: Remix at the Edinburgh Fringe, but you probably will
Giselle: Remix (Ali Wright)
Giselle: Remix (Ali Wright)
“I can’t see a world where he’s going to enjoy watching me lip syncing to ‘Double Penetration’,” Jack Sears replies after a short pause, when I ask him if he’d ever consider inviting Nigel Farage to watch his “unapologetically queer” Edinburgh Fringe show, Giselle: Remix.
The subject of Nigel Farage came up because 32-year-old Sears is originally from Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, which has the very dubious honour of of having the notorious, right-wing Reform UK party founder as its local MP.
“I think Clacton’s quite infamous,” Sears continues. “We were the first place to have a UKIP MP as well, so I think the most important thing to say is although I love Clacton and I have no shame about being from there, I’m also quite passionate about having my name attached to something that’s from Clacton that’s also a platform for queer and trans voices.”
“OK, so maybe my show Giselle: Remix won’t be top of the search results for Clacton, but hopefully a few pages down people might see a story titled: “Jack Sears is from Clacton and he’s doing a very queer show that isn’t about Nigel Farage,” he adds.
Giselle: Remix is, indeed, a very queer show. It’s a retelling of the classic 19th century ballet Giselle, about a peasant girl who falls in love with a nobleman, and dies of a broken heart.
However, Jack Sears and choreographer Hannah Grennell have reimagined it as a mesmerising blend of dance and theatre, which weaves ballet and lip-sync cabarets with an epic original soundscape that ranges all the way from Judy Garland to the late trans icon SOPHIE.
So, why is the tragic story of Giselle a good basis for a thumping-soundtracked queer dance show? “The reason i decided to use it as a basis for the show is because I think that its largely unfamiliar to a general audience, meaning I could do something with it without people having too many preconceptions,” he replies.
Sears is clearly very enthusiastic about the song choices and the way they take the audience on a journey. “In terms of the music, all of the artists featured in Giselle: Remix are, if not queer, at least queer-adjacent,” he explains. “The show starts with a Judy Garland number, a true gay icon, then as we move through the story, another notable track is “Paradise Is You” by La Roux – a sweltering number that perfectly describes the act of falling in love; the pure glory of it all.”
The second half of Giselle: Remix moves into what Sears describes as “very raw, gritty, sexual territory,” with DJ tracks and explicit lyrics: more like a rip-roaring LGBTQ+ club night than what you might expect from classically trained dancers at the Edinburgh Fringe.
“We have a section called the sex medley”
Asked how the often quite politically mixed, sometimes older daytime crowd at the Fringe have reacted to the more explicit queer elements in the show, Sears responds: “We had a woman in her late 70s or early 80s in on the front row one night. She had a walking stick and I was like, I’m not too sure what she’ll make of this, I hope she knows what she’s signing up for.”
However, Sears didn’t need to worry. “We have a section called the sex medley,” he continues. “During that I saw her tapping her walking stick on the floor to the beat of the music. Then, at the end, she turned to the person sitting next to her, who was one of my friends, and said ‘that was really fab’. It was a real lesson to me to stop worrying and just trust people, and trust the show.”
“It’s also important not to stereotype people just because they’re older,” he adds. “At the end of the day, I think I’m radical but people who were around in the 1960s and 1970s are probably more radical than me! The show, despite how unusual and how queer it is, can still resonate with people from different backgrounds and bring people together. I think that’s very important, especially given the fact we’re currently living through a pretty intense culture war in the UK.”
Speaking of culture wars, the topic of conversation again drifts back to Nigel Farage, and if he would be welcome to attend if he wanted to. If not, why? “Well, it’s tricky because we have trans dancers at the show, for example, and I don’t want them to be performing for people who are rooting against them,” Sears says.
“The show is all about queer lineage, ancestry and empowerment so I wouldn’t want to compromise that in this climate,” he continues. “On the whole, I am open to people being there as long as they have respect for us and aren’t abusive to us while we’re performing. I am genuinely keen for the show to reach different audiences and not just exist in an echo chamber.”
“At the end of the day, the show isn’t about who I don’t want there, it’s about the people that I do. We want this show to reach a wider queer demographic, and I’d love to see a roomful of people from all different walks of life looking back at me the next time we perform it.”
When asked what aspects of Giselle: Remix he’s most proud of, Sears replies: “We’re all very proud of the fact we have such a broad spectrum of queer representation on stage. Our dancers have been trained at some of the highest institutions in the country, they’re incredible and it’s great to see them in a capacity where they don’t have to tone anything down and they can bring all that rawness, messiness, queerness, talent and skill to the stage. I feel very lucky.”
Giselle: Remix is being performed daily at 3.40pm at the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh until Sunday 24 August.
