A Life in Three Acts

A programme text edition to coincide with the forthcoming international tour of the play. Mark Ravenhill is one of our most successful and important playwrights and has a strong following for all his works. Bette Bourne is a seminal figure in the gay liberation movement as well as a radical advocate of his own colourful form of drag artistry and gay theatre.

Tells about the author's brave and flamboyant life. This work reminisces and replays scenes from his life from a postwar childhood, a stint as a classical actor in the late 60s, to living in a drag commune in Notting Hill and being an active member of the Gay Liberation Front.With honesty, humour and occasional anger, performer Bette Bourne tells the playwright Mark Ravenhill about his brave and flamboyant life. Crafted from transcripts of a series of long, private conversations, actor Bette Bourne reminisces and replays scenes from his life from a postwar childhood,a stint as a classical actor in the late 60s, to living in a drag commune in Notting Hill and being an active member of the Gay Liberation Front. Bette then talks about his touring with the New York based Hot Peaches cabaret group and founding his own cabaret troop, Bloolips, which redefined the term gay theatre by creating their very own unique celebration of dramatic and colourful homosexuality. The piece, in three parts, marks a different series of events in Bette's life to reveal both a portrait of a pioneering, radical individual and a historical document of the struggles and achievements of gay liberation.