I’m ten and we have a school assembly about the greenhouse effect, we sit in neat orderly rows with our legs crossed and arms folded tight across our chests. A man the headteacher calls a scientist gets up, he starts to explain to us that the earth is heating up, I look out of the window, it’s raining and cold. I think instead about the contraband tamagotchi in my pocket. It is, at this moment in time, probably the most important thing in my life. I suddenly realise that the kids around me have started to cry and Johnjo O’shea quietly says under his breath, ‘this is nearly as bad as the time they told us our parents had sex, to have us’. Later at break, in a corner of the playground I take my tamagotchi out of my pocket and notice straight away that the batteries have died, its devastating. My best friend Zoe Hopkins says she’s pretty sure that it’s all a metaphor for that mornings assembly but she can’t be 100% because she’s only eleven and has so far, only ever read one Judy Blume book. The same day, my sister, who was also in the assembly comes home from school, takes our dad’s only hammer (still in the plastic wrapping) and smashes every single glass panel in the greenhouse in our back garden. Then, covered in glass fragments, that form a kind of wonky halo above her head as they catch the last of the late winter light, she enters the living room still holding the hammer, as the Neighbours theme tune begins to play and defiantly declares that she and she alone, has, saved the world. My other sister and I turn back to the telly, sure that this is the episode Scott is finally going to snog Charlene and tell her, with absolute certainty that she definitely hasn’t, the only thing she has done, is got herself into a whole lot of trouble. My mum writes a letter of complaint to the school. We have another special assembly a week later about not taking things so literally, where we are asked rhetorical questions like, if someone asked you to jump off a cliff, would you? Johnjo O’Shea says quietly under his breath, ‘this is nearly as bad as that time they told us the world was going to end.’

Over twenty five years later I’m at the Beyond Queer Lab at Metal Arts in Peterborough about to sing a Justin Bieber song, with new lyrics that I rewrote, whilst performing a dance with a lovely french man called Andrew who I only met three days ago, in front of a room full of almost strangers, one of which seems to be recording the whole thing on her phone. Andrew is a dancer, he has a dancer's body, he has the right kind of dancer clothes, he’s elegant and graceful and can get off a floor without using any of his hands. I’m awkward and make zines in my bedroom, sometimes whilst eating crisps, which I consider multitasking, I suddenly feel completely and absolutely out of my depth. The instrumental version of Justin Bieber’s, ‘Love yourself’ starts to play, I take Andrew’s hand and start to sing.

After the singing and because I only had time to rewrite one verse but we’ve been told our ‘performance’ must last three minutes, the music continues to play and we kind of pull at one another, whilst shouting offensive things, until we both fall on the floor. There is a spattering of applause. It’s thrilling. Lois Weaver one of the Lab facilitators squeezes my shoulder and gives me a smile. She’s 67 and probably the coolest person I’ve ever met. We watch the other performances. Stand outs include Zoe and Ethan’s funeral for the end of the world and Rachael and Stephen posting Rachael’s actual cut up driving license back to the DVLA, along with a letter that they, completely exasperated, perform, not only to us but also to the bemused people of Peterborough.

We spend our last afternoon together making placards. Trying to squeeze everything that we’ve learnt about in the last four days into succinct, neat, calls to action. Metal proudly display them in the toilet, where I trust they will stay until they, or the building falls down. Afterwards, we begin to leave, saying our goodbyes and making promises to stay in touch. We all commit to writing a zine together, called, ‘The Annual Reminder,’ apt in name, as it was the original Pride, (well kind of) we pledge to hand out our zine at the summer Prides in our various towns and cities. I read about the annual reminder on my phone on the way home from the Lab. I learn about how it started in 1965, a small group of LGBT people gathered together to inform and remind Americans once a year, that gay people still did not have basic civil rights protection and in their own country too. They held up placards with messages like, ‘15 MILLION HOMOSEXUALS ASK FOR EQUALITY, OPPORTUNITY & DIGNITY.’ They never spoke, there was a dress code, suits and ties for men, dresses for women, the organisers intention was to present homosexuals as presentable and employable, they walked in single file. The final reminder happened a week after the Stonewall riots of 1969, after that, there was a shift, the violence and police brutality of that night and the many nights before, liberated them, they were united and had finally found their voice. 

Nearly 50 years later 12 queer artists and performers, including myself and my collaborator Alec Steens, are invited to Peterborough to try and come up with an answer to the following -

In the face of continued austerity, over-population, mass migration, global warming, and famine we are told we are past the point of prevention, and now in the era of adaptation. So, in the face of catastrophe who might lead the way? Those on the outside and in the margins have always been the masters of adaptation - might they hold some valuable knowledge and potential solutions? What could the role for LGBTQIA+ artists in sorting out the shit? Is it time to refocus, recognising that the identity politics and the fight for equality is not enough in the face of global disaster? Might we all need to re-imagine a new way of living and being together; mobilising and building new communities working toward a bigger cause? 

Shit. And I know what you’re thinking right.... she just changed the lyrics to a Justin Bieber song and danced around (badly) with a french man called Andrew? Really? The brief has the words catastrophe and global disaster in it, this is not the time for pop music or for that matter dancing. But I bet you’ve never had two hours to come up with a performance that is supposed to incorporate everything you’ve learned in the last four days about, essentially the end of humanity as we know it? No? I didn’t think so. And I gave me myself extra work to do because I wanted to make people laugh because this stuff is fucking frightening. Andrew wasn’t so sure and so we reached what’s known as a compromise, (Theresa May) and danced a bit too.  

So do a bunch of queers have the power to sort it out? I don’t know and I definitely know that the twelve of us can’t do it all on our own but if you think about how far we’ve come as a community and in such a short amount of time, we do, get shit done. In the UK for example it only took 46 years since the decriminalization of homosexuality (the sexual offences act of 1967) until same sex marriage was legalized in 2013. The equal equality act only passed in the UK in 2010, a law endeavouring to give women something actually quite simple - equal rights in the workplace, if you consider that, us queers are winning by a good couple of thousand years. But it can’t just be us. We have to work together, we have to push our prejudices and politics aside. 

I thought back to that moment when I was ten, a lot at the Lab, how devastating the scientists words had been, evoking such a strong reaction in my sister that she felt compelled to destroy something, in order to survive (I’m disappointed on reflection that I just wanted to watch neighbours). But then we grew up and with that came responsibilities and a certain kind of exhausting mundanity that leaves little room for much us. We can’t keep putting it off, you know this isn’t  dinner with your partner’s University friends right? the classic - yeah I’ll do it tomorrow doesn’t quite cut it, when you run out of tomorrow’s. And it’s the stuff that comes before the end of the world that’s the really scary stuff, the civil unrest, the fighting someone to the death in a Welcome Break for the last carton of ribena, the moment humanity begins to turn on itself. And that comes before the BANG. I imagine a BANG but also sometimes a balloon deflating, really fucking slowly.

And does art have a place in all of this? You could argue that it absolutely doesn’t and we need to stick to hard cold facts, science and maybe it is time to start building that underground bunker you’ve always dreamed about. But then I remember what Neil Gaiman wrote in his book, Art Matters - 

 “It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that society is huge and the individual is less than nothing. But the truth is individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.” 

And that’s what we need to do right now, we all need to imagine that things can be different, to shake ourselves out of denial, to inject hope into those that have already given up. So, I’ll count us in, one, two, three and all together…..

Sing to the tune of Love yourself by (yes) Justin Bieber

For all the times that you used a plastic bag

And all the straws you used to suck a smirnoff ice

you flush the toilet cause you just like the sound

You think I'm crying, on my own well I ain't

And I didn't wanna write a song 'cause I didn't want anyone thinking I still care

But i do, that you still don’t wash your tins out

And baby you’ll be mining coltan in rwanda for all your smart devices

So you can check my instagram, snapchat

I don't wanna hold back, maybe you should know that

My friends don't like you but they don’t like anyone

And I never like to admit that I was wrong

But I've been so caught up with Brexit, i didn't see what's going on

And now I know, the worlds probably about to end

'Cause if you like the way you live that much

Oh baby you should go and fuck yourself

And if you think that im still holding on to something

Oh baby you should go and fuck yourself