DIVA sat down with Eleanor Colville, Ro Suppa and Robbie Taylor Hunt to find out more
BY VEE WILSON, IMAGES BY CAM HARLE
The vamps and camps among us will no doubt be gagging to see Count Dykula at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this month. The gothic but goofy musical tells the story of an undead butch loner who’s out for blood – and gender norms – at Scare University. DIVA spoke to the cast and co-creators of the show: Eleanor Colville, Ro Suppa, and Robbie Taylor Hunt. They opened up about the mythology that inspired them, the significance of making the queer media they missed growing up, and the importance of unapologetically fun queer theatre.
Why the interest in vampires? Is there something about that mythology that feels particularly queer or ripe for satire?
Eleanor: The whole like biting and turning somebody can massively play in, but in the show, we’ve got other monsters, not just vampires. In general, I think it was more that we also wanted a supernatural world and story as well.
Robbie: Yeah, we have werewolves, zombies, ghosts, goblins, demons. I mean, it’s going back to the classic; it’s about the other. Like in every story, there’s the human, the ‘normal’, and then the other. The other is like this scary, strange thing that isn’t doing what everyone expects it to do and queer as the other is typical shit, so that’s what we’ve been playing with.
The show has been described as an even gayer Monster High, and for a lot of queer people, that media was really important growing up. Was there any media that was really important to you growing up that has inspired you in any way?
Ro: Well, Eleanor grew up without a TV.
Robbie: Yeah, there wasn’t a lot growing up; we’re just so old. Honestly, finding weird YouTube short films of some random gays kissing and being like “I am going to die with excitement!”. […] I remember Hollyoaks having Craig and John Paul. I didn’t watch Hollyoaks, I’d just watch all the clips of those two. I could probably re-enact shot-for-shot what happened in all of their scenes. I was rabid.
Ro: It was hard because it was illegal for us to have queer content when we were growing up. But I watched two very formative things. I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show in about 26 parts, illegally, on YouTube, and that changed my life. […] And it’s still a massive part of my personality; I dressed as Frank’N’Furter for my 30th birthday. It truly shifted something in my brain. Also, I just couldn’t stop watching every piece of footage I could ever get of Eddie Izzard. There was nothing that could stop me from saving coupons to get her DVDs in the fucking corner shop. And then we got older, and Section 28 was lifted because there are even gay people in Tracy Beaker now.
And how does it feel going from growing up without seeing much of that kind of media to being the ones producing it for other people? To sort of be the representation you didn’t have?
Eleanor: I’ve not given it that much thought. It just feels fun, it just feels good. […] It feels really good to see that queer audience, a diverse queer audience, and seeing everyone, like that feels nice.
Ro: Also, the fact that it’s called Count Dykula. As a child, I didn’t want to surprise anyone, but I was quite a masculine woman back when I was one, so the word dyke was thrown at me. It made months of my life horrible. I didn’t understand what it meant, and it made me not want to go to school and not see my friends, and people would try to give it to me as a “nickname” on the back of t-shirts – it was truly horrendous. The thing I like a lot is that we now screen it on stage, and it’s so sweetly silly. That’s nice because hopefully that means that there’s some kid somewhere that’s not seeing that word as only a bad thing. Because it’s done that for me a little bit. Dykes are funny and cool, and everyone wants to fuck them.
Are there any particular messages that you hope people take away from watching your show?
Ro: That being gay is fun and cool. We kind of do this with Lesbian Space Crime, we say, “The message is that being queer is whatever you want it to be!” Well, that is the only message; there aren’t others.
And if your younger teenage selves could see the show now, what would they think?
Ro: I think I would probably freak the fuck out. […] I think if teenage me saw this, that I was doing it, there’d be a profound fear and a dread that settles in their stomach. Like he’d sort of be like, “Oh my god that’s so scary to even be that publicly queer, at the moment you’re being bullied for being masculine. It’s crazy that I would do a show.” I would probably think it was a horrible feat of bullying. But I’d go home and feel happy about it.
Robbie: Not even at home, right there you’d be like, “Oh, this is horrible! But wait, everyone’s clapping, everyone’s laughing, I’m going to be okay!” That’s what would happen.
Eleanor: I think I would just go “Uh-huh”.
Ro: Like, “Uh-huh, that alllll checks out”.
Robbie: I think that I’d be buzzing to know that I was doing plays and making stuff. I was doing youth theatre shows when I was a teenager, where I was making up plays and doing little variety shows in tiny theatres and student places. I was just trying to do that in my spare time away from school, and now look at us doing it all the time!
Airlock Theatre are performing Lesbian Space Crime (2:50 pm) and Count Dykula (5:30 pm) at Pleasance Dome Ace Dome until Monday 25 August.
Planning what to see at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? Take a look at these LGBTQIA+ show suggestions from DIVA!
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