Things A Bright Young Queer Can Do  at the Chichester Fringe - video Dailymotion

Chichester city councillor and writer Rhys Chant offsets media negativity about queerhood with a fun and upbeat piece for the Chichester Fringe.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Chichester Observer and Sussex

00:07Newspapers. Really lovely to speak again to Rhys Chant. Now Rhys, you've got a fantastic

00:11sounding show. You can judge shows by the title, can't you? And this is a really appealing

00:16one. Things a bright young queer can do. And it's going to be performing two performances

00:22in one day at the Old Courtroom Council House on June the 7th this year for the Chichester

00:28Fringe. And it's got such an interesting, challenging tagline, hasn't it? Queerhood is far harder

00:35than anyone gives you credit for. What does that mean? That was the starting point, was

00:40it? Yeah, it was the sort of the moment that I realised that I wanted to do the show was

00:47looking at a world that's, although accepting, has sort of moved back in time recently. And

00:54with a world sort of that's more vitriolic than ever, I think it's really important to

00:58find moments for queer joy. So all the things a bright young queer can do is hoping and striving

01:04to be an account of empowering young queer people and all the things that young queer

01:08people can get up to.

01:10So what are you wanting to say about queerhood?

01:14So I think with this piece and all the research I've done going around the country, sort of all

01:20of the hours spent in the car, spending nights on other people's sofas, cake, tea, coffee, all

01:26those lovely moments. Nice work.

01:28Yes. Well, I definitely want, what we're trying to say is that the community is stronger than

01:34it's ever been. That, you know, queerhood is empowering, that as a young queer person, you

01:39can do anything. And it's been really nice to hear the lived experiences of so many different

01:44people and to get to meet so many interesting queer people.

01:47And this is partly sort of said, sort of media images of queerhood, isn't it? You were saying

01:54that not too often queer people are seen as either hypersexual or deeply, deeply depressed,

01:59but that's not the reality.

02:00No, absolutely. And so we wanted to, I wanted to make a piece that was more about the collective

02:06queer experience, especially of a generation sort of post section 28 and of a queerhood after,

02:13sort of, you know, gay marriage and all the Equality Act and everything. So yeah, it's

02:19striving to sort of challenge the concepts that queer people in media are always either

02:24hypersexual or depressed, and actually to sort of show a whole cacophony of experiences

02:28that young queer people go through.

02:30And the lovely thing is that at the end of this, when it's performed in London, you will

02:34end up with a master's degree.

02:36I will indeed. Yes, hopefully. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah.

02:45Brilliant. Yeah.

02:46Well, congratulations on it. It sounds fantastic. It's in the Old Courtroom, two performances,

02:51June the 7th at the Chichester Fringe. Good luck with it, Rhys, and lovely to see you.

02:56Thank you very much.

02:58Lovely to speak, you too.