CONTACT THEATRE CELEBRATES QUEER CULTURE WITH AN EXTRAORDINARY LINE UP OF LGBTQ+ TALENT
February 2022 sees Queer Contact return to Manchester’s Contact theatre for the first time in the newly transformed venue. Having recently undergone a £6.75million transformation of its iconic building on Oxford Road, Contact has expanded to create enhanced performance and event space to support queer communities from across the region. Tickets are now on sale for the 9-day celebration which will take over all corners of the venue.
Queer Contact began over a decade ago and has since become the beating heart of Manchester’s queer arts scene. The annual Vogue Ball, a riotous head-to-head display of skills from Vogue houses across the North West, is recognised as a trailblazing event. In 2022, the festival will platform a broad range of life experience, forge alternative paths for celebrating queer identities and – for the first time – will create opportunities to engage in educational activities around queer life and health.
Queer Contact 2022 was built to meet the needs of the next generation of LGBTQ+ artists and audiences. Through in-depth consultation, Contact has aimed to ensure that the festival truly speaks to a young queer audience in the city. By hosting workshops with individuals aged 13 – 30 Contact embedded a commitment to reflecting the experiences and interests of young people in the LGBTQ+ community. The workshops involved consultation on the outline, strategy and programme of this year’s Queer Contact.
The festival kicks off with drag king troupe Pecs: King of the North. Expect to be entertained with slick dance routines, sexy lip-syncs and raucous comedy. The regular Pecs team will be joined by guest Kings from Manchester’s scene in a night to celebrate queer community. Next up, The Enby Show, hosted by Carrot and featuring Divina de Campo, bringing together the best gender-benders and cis-tem offenders that the UK has to offer, in an all-star variety night popping with creme-de-la-thems.
Contact theatre is well known for its commitment to young and early-career artists, and Queer Contact’s line-up is no exception. Scratch will see tantalising glimpses of new work from a number of queer Manchester based creatives – including the two recipients of the GM LGBTQ+ Arts and Culture Network bursary: Jova and the Wave, Maz Hedgehog who share early material from their winning commissions. In addition, Plaster Cast Theatre, Sam Danson, Taylor le Fin (with TransCreative) and Chanje Kunda will also share early-stage material of new work exploring bisexual bliss, working class transmasculinity, LGBTQ+ mental health and queer desire.
Glamrou (the alter ego of Amrou Al-Kadhi) presents their debut solo show, exploring the tensions between the artist’s queerness and Iraqi/Islamic heritage. Glamrou takes us from the depths of hell to the zenith of Islamic paradise, saying the things that no one else dares to, and showing us what it means to live in a state of harmonious contradiction.
This is followed by a celebration of global vogue culture at the House of Suarez and Contact Vogue Ball at Manchester Academy 1. House of Suarez’s legendary annual Vogue Ball is returning to Manchester with a 2022 theme of Night at the Poseum, with performances inspired by treasures from around the globe currently on display in museums throughout the North West.
Queer Contact line up
Feb 11-19th
These events below all part of Queer Contact 2022 – and the first in Contact’s newly refurbished theatre space. Each February, as part of LGBT History Month, Queer Contact’s programming converges in a festival of events – Queer Contact Festival – featuring the best performance, music, spoken word, dance, theatre and visual art with local young people and performers interacting with the best UK and international talent.
Pecs: King of the North ( London based – Manchester and Contact debut)
Friday 11 Feb 7.30pm ( For ages 16+)
Join the Kings of Pecs for an evening of swoon-worthy cabaret featuring local guest Kings.
The Kings of Pecs are making their Manchester debut with a cabaret extravaganza. Expect to be entertained with slick dance routines, sexy lip-syncs and raucous comedy. We’ll be joined by local guest Kings in a night to celebrate queer community and shower you with the royal treatment you deserve.
Pecs Drag Kings are an all-women and non-binary theatre and cabaret company who’ve been creating critically acclaimed shows for the LGBTQ+ community since 2013. Through their drag king cabarets and theatre shows, they explore gender identities, politics & sexuality, to create cultural space for queer women, trans* & non-binary folk. Their shows are sexy, raucous and highly entertaining, using songs, dances and comedy to celebrate inclusivity, queerness & community.
@pecsdrag | @pecsdragkings
Divina : Enby Show 7.30pm
For ages 16+
Put on your best non-binary finery, and prepare to experience enby envy like never before!
Featuring the creme-de-la-thems of enby (non-binary) performers, The Enby Show, described as “electric, unique and vibrant”, is a gender-bending variety show that bins the binary and crashes the cis-tem.
You can expect live singing, group acts, drag, comedy and plenty of unexpected surprises in this evening filled to the brim with the brightest enby stars that the UK has to offer. The Enby Show has performed across the UK in different venues, including a West End theatre, Underbelly’s Spiegeltent, Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and now it makes its way to Manchester!
Put on your best non-binary finery, and prepare to experience enby envy like never before, in this spectacle hosted by “ginger fever dream” “everyone’s favourite drag vegetable” (TimeOut London), Carrot. They’re joined by their enbies-in-residence FLick and Cyro, along with super special guest Divina de Campo.
@TheEnbyShow
Sun 13 Feb Palaver Party
11am for ages 3-8
PALAVER PARTY is a space where everyone is free to be whoever they want to be.
Fatt Projects are bringing all their most glittery and colourful friends to throw a FABULOUS performance party for kids (and their grown-ups too!).
PALAVER PARTY is a space where everyone is free to be whoever they want to be. Join your host Fatt Butcher and a spectacular line-up of drag and cabaret performers for the most exciting family disco Manchester has ever seen.
Get ready for music, performances, DIY costume-making, party games, sing-a-longs, glitter, and a rainbow disco for all the family.
Suitable for ages 3-8 (and fabulous for grown-ups too), bring the little ones, stick on a sequin or ten, and get ready for a boogie.
Sun 13 Feb Family Vogue Ball 2pm
For ages 4+
Dress your finest, come learn the moves – then take to the floor…
Welcome to The Family Vogue Ball! Part theatre show, part vogue ball: glamour, glitz and grace come together in a fabulous celebration of self-expression. Join us as four houses go head to head in an epic vogue ball for all the family.
A performer from each house will catwalk, dance and lip-sync to be crowned by you the audience, the ultimate house with our interactive event where the audience decides the winner.
Whether you just want to join in the fun or have a passion to pose, come along and show off your own magnificence by dressing up and help crown the winning house!
Dress your finest, come learn the moves – then take to the floor…
“A family vogue ball is a vital space for gay, trans, non-conforming and questioning young people to see positive, celebratory representations of themselves. Nothing else comes close to its outright celebration of fashion, music, dance, individuality, aspiration and creativity. But it is also an eye-opening and magical experience for all families to explore different identities and ways of being outside of the mainstream, through movement, dance and costume.” – Darren Pritchard, House Mother: House of Ghetto
House of Ghetto Family Vogue Ball
Produced by Switchflicker Productions
Commissioned by Z-arts, Homotopia and Black Gold Arts. Supported by Arts Council England.
Glamrou ( London based)
Tues 15th Feb 7.30pm
For ages16+
Muslim drag sensation Glamrou takes us from the depths of hell to the zenith of Islamic paradise.
After a sell out run in London, Glamrou brings this hilarious and exhilarating solo show to Contact!
Muslim drag sensation Glamrou takes us from the depths of hell to the zenith of Islamic paradise, saying the things that no one else dares to, and showing us what it means to live in a state of harmonious contradiction.
Amrou Al-Kadhi is a drag queen, actor, screenwriter and author. Their memoir, Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything In Between, was published by Harper Collins in the UK and the US and won the Polari First Book Prize and the Somerset Maugham award – it has received praise from Ian McKellen, Russell T Davies, Joanna Lumley, Kumail Nanjiani & Emily Gordon, and many others.
As a screenwriter, Amrou co-wrote the final episode of Apple’s Little America, which The Hollywood Reporter called ‘the show’s pinnacle,’ and named as one of the best 10 episodes of television in 2020; this episode has also just won a Glaad award, with the series nominated for Best New Scripted Series at the Independent Spirit awards.
Amrou was also a writer on BBC America’s series The Watch, and has sold pilot scripts to FX Productions, ABC and BBC Drama. They have written many episodes for Channel 4’s longest running soap opera, Hollyoaks. Their first feature as writer/director, LAYLA, a contemporary queer Romeo & Juliet immersed in the warring factions of the gay community during Pride, is in development with Film4.
As an actor, Amrou has principal credits in Carnival Row (Series 2), Venom 2, Christopher Robin (Disney), The Souvenir 2 (Joanna Hogg), Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, and many others. Amrou has written & directed four short films, which have been broadcast on PBS, NOWNESS, BBC 4, BBC iPlayer, BFI-Player, Revry, and which have screened and won awards at festivals internationally, including the BFI London Film Festival and many others.
Ell and Mary Fitter (London based – Manchester and Contact debut)
Weds 16 Feb 7.30pm
For ages 14+
Through singing, dancing, and f*cking around in crap drag, Ell and Mary write a love letter to masculinity.
A rugby ball’s soft, a hockey stick’s hard, what does that make me?’ – Boy, 12
Hello, we’re Ell and Mary.
We’re ex-girlfriends and bisexuals and we’re a bit bummed out by boys.
Three years ago we interviewed women and trans people aged 11 to 97 for our five-star sell-out show HOTTER. We didn’t interview men. We just didn’t want to. Because men are trash, right?
Wrong. Well, sometimes wrong. We asked men, and masculine-presenting people aged 8 to 102 about what makes them hard. This is a show about what we learnt: about strength, fitting in, feeling yourself, and arseholes.
Through singing, dancing, and f*cking around in crap drag, Ell and Mary write a love letter to masculinity which they are forever tearing up and taping back together again.
Thurs 17 Feb Emma Frankland – Hearty (Brighton based)
7.30pm
For ages 14+
Hearty is about how we can be prepared for the challenges of modern trans existence.
“We Are a Hearty Sisterhood”
We must bury our knowledge until the apocalypse passes.
Bearing wings made of sharp knives and shooting fireballs into the air, Emma tackles the current media fascination with trans lives and interrogates the controversial biotechnology of HRT.
In part, a response to her experiences with trans people in Brazil, Sulawesi and Turtle Island – Hearty is about how we can be prepared for the challenges of modern trans existence, whilst listening to our ancestors and preparing the way for those who will come after us.
Hearty is the fifth and final solo show in the None of Us is Yet a Robot project – a series of performances that have been a response to her gender transition and the politics surrounding trans identity over the past seven years. https://www.emmafrankland.co.
Vogue Ball at Manchester Academy 7pm Friday 18 Feb
For ages 18+
House of Suarez’s legendary annual Vogue Ball is returning to Manchester with a 2022 theme of Night at the Poseum, with performances inspired by treasures from around the globe currently on display in museums throughout the North West.
The ball will once again be steered by Captain Rikki Beadle-Blair as Master of Ceremonies. Expect an extravaganza of costume, dance, and high drama as Houses from across the UK come together to compete for catwalk supremacy in categories such as Fantasy, Solo, Lip Synch, Sex Siren and Choreography.
Dubbed club culture meets high art, the Vogue Ball has become a key annual event in Queer Contact and is inspired by the legendary balls held in New York City from the 1970s, which provided a platform for young Black and Latinx LBGTQ+ people to showcase their flamboyant and competitive personalities.
The Bitten Peach Saturday 19 Feb 9pm
The UK’s only Pan-Asian cabaret collective comes to Contact!
We’re so excited to bring The Bitten Peach – “a sparkling collection of drag/cabaret/burlesque nights by and for the queer Pan-Asian community” – to Contact in 2022.
Nominated for “Best Collective” for QX Cabaret Award in 2019, The Bitten Peach is the UK’s only Pan-Asian cabaret collective, made up of performers of Asian descent working in a variety of nightlife performance genres, including drag, burlesque, dance, comedy, music, and circus.
Founded at the start of 2019, The Bitten Peach has been dedicated to increasing and diversifying Asian representation on the drag and cabaret scene.
Saturday 19 Feb 7.30pm
The Untold Orchestra ( for ages 14+)
14+.14+
The Untold Orchestra is a Manchester-based collaborative orchestra aiming to redefine the role of an orchestra in the 21st century. They seek to unite individuals and communities through innovative, socially-focused performance settings centred around an identifiable common ground.
Through an exploration of their lives or their most renowned albums, The Untold Orchestra look to give audiences deeper insights into musical icons, often creating an experience impossible to find anywhere else. Over the last hundred years there have been so many incredibly inspiring artists that have shaped musical, cultural and social history, and The Untold Orchestra are making efforts to build as many shows as possible to help share not just the music, but the messages that these artists promoted.
Founded on the belief that all art forms can be accessible to anyone, The Untold Orchestra collaborate with a wide array of musicians, artists, venues and communities to ensure that they reach new people in every project.
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