Dress for success

Fashion, politics, pop. Stripping, religion, identity. Drag, dreams, drugs. Liverpool, London, Berlin… La JohnJoseph crams a whole lot into 'Boy in a Dress'. That's the title of his new production at the Ovalhouse Theatre that packages together three one-person shows - 'Notorious Beauty', 'I Happen to Like New York' and 'Underclass Hero' - that the young performer has presented individually at more than a dozen venues over the past 15 years.

As well as all being autobiographical stories - 'totally true, even the bits I made up' - the pieces are connected by their creator's glacially arch, acerbically observant and subtly vulnerable persona; by their form (all are monologues studded with songs by composers including Cole Porter, Leonard Cohen and Justin Vivian Bond); and by their exploration of tensions between apparently disparate subject matter.

'It's a life that's been deeply mundane but also kind of glittering,' La JohnJoseph notes. 'There are always feet in different worlds, whether it's straddling gender and class divides, comparing Catholicism with psychedelic drugs, or combining serious discussions about body dysmorphia and Thatcher with stories about drunken drag queens.'

There's a cohesive new set design but the text and songs remain more or less the same as the original shows - though the rehearsal process has brought latent connections to the fore. 'The director said: “You could have called this 'All About My Mother”.' And I suppose we do have a bit of a Judy-and-Liza thing going on…'

A keen writer since childhood - 'The next-door neighbour used to buy me exercise books in exchange for writing stories for her' - La JohnJoseph didn't consider a career in storytelling while growing up in a one-parent family on a council estate in Bootle, or even after finding the East London alt-drag scene. The 'aha!' moment arrived only after studying in San Francisco and stripping in New York, where performers like Penny Arcade, Joseph Keckler and Erin Markey were proving the power of text-based performance art.

La JohnJoseph moved back to London in 2008 but relocated to Berlin about a year ago. 'The thing about moving to so many places is you meet so many different people and form relationships you couldn't have imagined. It's nice to be part of the mobile, transcontinental generation.There's a lot to be said for developing local communities but you can't let it be exclusive of the rest of the planet.

'Corporations aren't saying: “We're going to be focusing on Bangor, Maine,” so I don't see why radical, alternative, grassroots activism should limit itself.'

Self-limitation has never really been La JohnJoseph's style. In terms of creative output, there's a whip-smart blog and an ongoing band project, Alexander Geist (three word description? 'Morose disco soul').

There are certainly more and more non-conformist images in the mainstream: 'Lady Gaga has a male alter ego; model Andrej Pejic does Gaultier's male and female shows; the Economist writes about Justin Vivian Bond's new [gender-neutral] pronoun ['v' instead of 'he' or 'she'].'

For La JohnJoseph, the key is the ability to redefine oneself on new terms - not simply a choice between being a woman or a man.
'I enjoy inhabiting a liminal space. It's interesting to carve out your own category - it frees you up a bit. I'm not sure it's helpful to have the freedom to exchange one predetermined gender for another. Make a new category.

'My six-year-old sister told me she isn't wearing skirts any more, just jeans, because she's a tomboy. Then she said: “On Facebook, you're always wearing frocks. Does that mean you're a tomgirl?”.'

Or perhaps just a boy in a dress…?