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I actually first got involved as an audience member. Um, I went along to see one of my friends, Andre, who'd been in the show, and a couple of my other friends had been in it as well. And it was just so entertaining. And, um, I loved it. And then basically, after that, they convinced me that I should join the show. And so I did. Yeah, a couple of years, a couple of years later. So can you take me through, um, that that whole process of, like, coming to the show and and you know how? How did that work for you? Um, well, to start off [00:00:30] with it was actually me and another one of my friends both sort of got shoe horned into it, and we went along to one of the first meetings and sort of found out what the show was about and what you have to put into it. And Jonathan is, um, very, very clear about the amount of work. So, I mean, what do you have to put into it? What? What did they say? Um, there's a lot of time that goes into rehearsals that we were having especially coming up to the end towards the show. Two rehearsals a week. Um, if you're working, if you are an Act [00:01:00] two girl or you're working with an a two girl, there's more on top of that for their own performance. Um, there's construction of all of your costumes and your head gear, which the headgear especially, can be a little bit of work. Some of it's very, very impressive, as I'm sure you've seen. Um, yeah, it's It's a lot of time, but it's all so entertaining, You know, all the rehearsals are just full of laughs. And, yeah, everyone gets along amazingly well. And so from that point. So you you went to the first? Yeah. I went to [00:01:30] the first couple of meetings and had a couple of meetings. Um, there there were. I think there were about three of them before we actually got into rehearsals and things where it was just sort of laying out the layout of the show and what they were looking at doing this year. And he sort of found out a couple of the songs and things and what was expected of us. And we had a good talk with Jonathan and he gives. He calls it drag 101 where he teaches people how to walk. And, um, yeah, how you need to pad and things. So [00:02:00] had you done drag before? No, I never done drag before. Have you done any kind of performance? No, Um, I was one of those kids who always wanted to, but I went to a rather large all boys school and the drama group. There was very, very small and very separate from everybody else, and I just never sort of got into it. I was more with the geek group at school. So, uh, one doing performance, but two also doing performance in drag. I mean, that's quite a big step from not that was a bit to wrap my head around, but, you [00:02:30] know, I thought, Why not? When else am I gonna get the chance to be on stage in front of 2000 people doing this kind of thing? Yeah, it was very, very cool. So take me through. Drag 101. What were the kind of things that he was teaching you Gosh, so long ago? Uh, I remember the biggest one. It was I think a lot of people struggle with is how to walk. And it's walking, not necessarily like a woman. Sometimes it's even. You have to exaggerate it more. [00:03:00] To try and or half what drag is is it's exaggeration rather than you know, a lot of men tend to walk stiffly or moving their shoulders, or as you need to actually move your hips, which I think can be very difficult for a lot of people. I certainly did find it difficult for a while, but you get into it quite easily in the end. What were some of the other things? Um, I remember we had talked about, um, making your own fake breasts and what were the best [00:03:30] materials for that kind of thing? Um, I think Jonathan's stand by with balloons full of rice or something. Yeah, I didn't end up using that. I made money out of all sorts of different things, but, I mean, even that would be quite hard to I mean, if you weren't used to it, getting the proportions right to work out how big you go. Well, I was actually really lucky. My family has been very, very supportive of the whole thing to be. They were a little bit thrown at the beginning. With the whole [00:04:00] I'm gonna be in a show dressed as a woman and didn't quite understand what that was about. Um, but after they adjusted to that, my mom actually helped me make all of my costumes. So she's been making clothes for years for herself and for her friends and for family friends. So she has a decent idea of what proportion you're supposed to be. We may have had a few little arguments over things, but yeah. So what age were you when you first started with queen of the whole universe? It was three years. I would [00:04:30] have been 19. And how did you How did how did you broach the subject with with the family? In terms of this is what I'm about to do. And, well, I basically just told them I was like, I'm gonna do the show. It's called Queen of the whole Universe. It raises money for these three fantastic foundations, and I need you to help make my costumes to my mom. She's helped me before with other things. Um, it always ends up. We're supposed to work together, and then in the last week, she does it all because [00:05:00] it hasn't happened yet. But, um, yeah, I just told I had to make my costumes and he goes, Oh, so what are we making? And I was like, Well, we have to make a ball gown and she sort of laughed a bit at that. And then, you know, once we got through it, she was fine. I think she was secretly quite happy that she got to make dresses and she was probably wanted to do it for her daughter that she never had. And so did this involve, um, going, shopping, choosing materials, all that. Yeah. We actually, um, [00:05:30] to start off with thought we'd go shopping and see if there are any things that we could just buy premade. That was very interesting. Um, I remember going into Glenfield mall with my mother into women's clothing stores and trying on clothes just so that we'd have something we wouldn't have to make. We were looking for, like, a corset top. And then I found one in an up shop that we bought. Yes, it was, um, the look on some of the sales girls faces is very entertaining, but, um yeah, once we sort of most [00:06:00] of it. We ended up making from scratch. Um, because we had the two outfits, two costumes. One of them was completely made at home. And the other one, we bought a top and then altered that quite significantly and then had to make the rest of it. So yeah, the idea for, um, what kind of dresses you were going to wear and the kind of colour scheme Was that something that you, um these are kind of like creative decisions that you made with your character. [00:06:30] Or was it? Yes. Um, well, there is a theme for the opening number because, um, it always looks best to have everyone on stage with some kind of coherency to them. So the theme for our opening number last year was purple with accents of silver for your dress. Um, Jonathan? Yes. The rules. He told us purple accents and silver full length dress, preferably with a split, because the audience likes to see your legs. So, um, that's what we did. Um, it was a very, very high split. In the end, it [00:07:00] came almost all the way up to my hip, but, um, actually made it easy to move. So, yeah, the second dress, Um, you have more control over because that was the one for the headgear of nations, which is a whole look that you have full creative control over. So, um, basically, it just comes down to what country or abstract idea? Some of them. What do you happen to be representing? Not everyone represents an actual physical country. Um, [00:07:30] and you have the whole thing themed to that, And so who will you? I always miss my space. I remember when I went to one of my couple of my favourite ones were the slightly more obscure ones. There was a Miss Fantasy Island, And, um, I knew there'd been a Miss Internet and Miss Uranus, and I thought because I was quite a lot younger than most of the other people on the show, I wanted to sort of represent that. And I thought, Miss my space would be a quite [00:08:00] an interesting way of doing it, because I wanted to bring a little bit of that sort of more almost a sort of slightly Gothic angle, which I think I got quite well in my head gear entry. Yeah. So what is, um, head gear for MySpace? Well, I came up with all these ideas, and then it turned out they were really impractical or they didn't carry across to people who weren't sort of part of the MySpace thing. But in the end, I went with, um, quite a [00:08:30] There's a term called cyberpunk or cyber goth, which it's, um, a way that people dress. And I sort of tried to emulate that and build on that a little bit. So my head gear wasn't as huge as everybody else's, but I turned it into a full look for my full outfit rather than just having this big thing sitting in my head, which I know. I thought it was another way of approaching it. So it was quite a cohesive statement. Yes, it was pretty wrong. We would say. Yeah, so I did bring some pictures. They just on my phone rather than, um, actually [00:09:00] it out because I don't have a printer. That's my full, um, outfit there for the head gear that was on stage. Which is why the colleague is a bit average, and that's me and drag. Can you describe what? What you're wearing here. Um, So here, um, this is the corset top that I bought in an op shop. And then we went through and, um, over all of the boning in the whole top, we sewed on ribbon, or my [00:09:30] mom did it and hated me for it. It was her idea in the first place. Um, and then it came down into a skirt underneath, which was a very big sort of chill skirt with pink and orange fabric over the top of it. And then you had the sort of cut off lace gloves and spiked wristband and jewellery, and it's stunning. Absolutely stunning. Had you done, you done, um, garment design before, um, a little bit. I'm [00:10:00] quite into costumes. Um, and then for other things. There a, um, convention in Auckland every year called the Armageddon Expo. Um, where me and a lot of my friends. Quite. I've done it. I've done it two years in a row. Now, um, create costumes because it's basically a festival that celebrates comic books and video games and TV shows and things like that. So people quite often build costumes of characters from those shows, and there's a whole competition about that. [00:10:30] But that's a lot of fun as well. It's a very, very similar sort of atmosphere. You know. Everyone who's in costume is accepted by everybody else, and it was very similar to Queen of the whole universe. I found just, I don't know. I think it's just something that brings people together. So you've got the costumes, which are fantastic, but also things like shoes. I mean, how how did you go? Did you go with shoes? Well, um, I've got quite big feet, so I was never going to be able to buy just a pair of women's heels, which I know [00:11:00] some people can do. Um, so Jonathan told me about the store out in. I think it's It's out south. I think it was only only hang called discount shoes, where the shoes are all generally slightly larger, and there's an entire wall at the back of the store devoted to drag shoes. Um, and I walked in there and there was this pair of boots on the wall, and as soon as I saw them, I was like Those are the ones that I need to buy. And they were sort of knee high laced up, um, patent [00:11:30] leather boots with a six inch heel on them. And I thought, at least if their boots are not going to fall out of them, Ronnie must do, uh, an amazing trade because I think most of the interviewees have Yeah, um, that's I think everyone who does drag in Auckland goes there, not just the show. Are there other favourite stores that that that you would go to the shoes or in general in general? Um, spotlight? I love spotlight. [00:12:00] It's amazing. Um, although actually for the show this year, I've bought a lot of fabric from cinder point, which I never thought I'd do because they're generally a bit more expensive, but I got lucky and there was a sale. But, um, with the show the $2 shops, actually, sometimes your best friend, especially for sparkly jewellery. You don't want anything that's expensive, but you want it to sparkle on stage. So one of the $2 shop gigantic fake diamond rings are perfect. It must be quite hard to work [00:12:30] out. You know what works well in reality might not work necessarily well on the stage. Yeah. How do you How do you work that out? Well, I think it's a bit of trail and error. Like what I found was making my first government with a The whole thing was trimmed with silver sequence, and we thought, Is it sparkly enough? And he thought, No, no, we need to put it around the top of the dress as well. So we did that and he goes, It's like, OK, yeah, now it probably is. Now we don't want to put too much on. And then when we arrived on the day [00:13:00] and then saw everyone else's costume, it's like I probably could have just covered the whole thing in sequence and it would have been fine, but yeah, it worked very well. It looked great on because we have the video from that show. So once I'd seen it, it still looked great. Is there a real competitive, uh, thing between the contestants in terms of, you know, the the kind of dresses that I work wearing, And I mean, you know, the big thing to have as many as possible or I? I don't think so. I think there's obviously definitely an element of competition in there. You know it's, but [00:13:30] it's very, very friendly competition. I think people everyone's garment, especially even for their opening number when they're trying to make everyone look similar, is so different. Um, because it's basically an expression of your personality or of the country that you're representing. So it's all up to you talk to me about the the process with your mom in terms of, you know, kind of designing and and kind of making the stuff. How does how does that all work? Well, it started off with a decent couple [00:14:00] of hours of, um, I'll say, discussing discussing ideas, um, searching things online and printing off all of these pictures and stapling them to the walls and then trying to draw what we were going to get from that, Um, the biggest complaint I got was, It's so hard trying to make a dress for a man. Um, and we actually ended up using made an evening gown out of the pattern from an A line dress, which originally was supposed [00:14:30] to finish above the knee and just extended that to the middle by about 18 inches to get work and that actually ended up working, Amazingly, but it's very much no specific pattern for a dress for a man makes things a bit interesting. But, um, once we got the pattern sorted and the fabric, we only had a few little things go wrong. Like once we actually sewn up the full dress, we realised that the fabric wasn't [00:15:00] thick enough and you could see through it That had to be changed a little bit. But, you know, so, yeah, it was actually quite cool. Very, very intense in parts. But, um, yeah, how far out before the performance state do you actually start working on the dress? Um, quite a long time. The problem starting long further out this year as well, because I've got more to do. Um, we've got about four months left now, but you don't want to be making it too [00:15:30] far out before you start the infamous Queen of the whole universe diet, which, um I think has just turned into a little bit of a joke with people wanting to look their best when they're on stage. And they're not fitting the dresses because it's suddenly gotten too large. So what is the diet. What does that? I didn't really do anything, but, um, I've I've heard it thrown around by a couple of people. Um, my friend Pia, who joined the show with me last year. She, [00:16:00] um, actually basically saw it as an opportunity to be healthier and actually ended up, you know, getting very quite into shape during it and had to actually, I think she ended up making a whole new dress in the end for the Wellington show. We definitely definitely made a new dress because the other one just didn't fit her anymore because, well, when you're, you know, spending two rehearsals a week and each one's over an hour long and you're dancing in six inch heels for that whole hour, it's, [00:16:30] you know, fantastic exercise. So when you first start rehearsing, do you Are you in heels at that point or No, generally, when you start out because you want people to be able to learn the dance move without killing themselves or start in flats, Um, just you know, your trainers, because it's been such a long time since most people have been in their heels, especially for all the guys who are in the show. The women, it's obviously a different matter, but, um, start off just in your trainers, and that's generally a good indicator of when you should start [00:17:00] training for your heels. So, um, what? I was doing what I was told to do, um, was just wear them around doing your housework at home, cooking dinner, then six inches taller than normal. And, yeah, I'm sure that gave my flatmates a few, um, shocks. It must give you quite a different perspective. You know, being six inches higher than Oh, yeah, it's very odd because, um, especially when I was growing up, I was always a very, very small kid. I didn't [00:17:30] go until seventh form, and then I caught up to everyone else. And being that much taller than anyone is very, very odd to me. It's, um Yeah, it's almost like you're walking around on stilts, but you get used to it quite quickly unless you have to run up and downstairs. And how do your feet cope? Um, generally fine until the end of the night. Um, the biggest problem for me was when we were in Wellington at the Opera house and [00:18:00] my dressing room was the one at the top, and there were a lot of stairs to go out from the stage up to the dressing room and back down again. When you've got about three minutes to do a costume change, Um, yeah, it got to the point where I was like, I'm just going to have to take these off and hope that the lacs don't undo themselves while I'm gone, because I thought I'd kill myself running down the stairs. Whereas when you're at the centre, it's all on one level, which is much, much handier doing that whole transformation into a new persona. [00:18:30] Do you? Do you find your personality changes as well? I think it's a lot like wearing a mask for a lot of people because, um, or even after my family told me they didn't recognise me, my mom said she only recognised me because of the dress. You find yourself probably a little bit more relaxed than you would be otherwise and you know, more inclined to go towards the drama, and I sort of when you, when you put [00:19:00] on any costume, it changes how you feel. But something that's that big a transformation. It sort of gives you. It's almost like a feeling of freedom to do what you want for the sake of the entertainment. Is that to me? That's what drag, especially for Queen of the whole universe is it's about the performance and about the art and the drama of it. But, um, for me, the biggest point in the transformation is this the first time, [00:19:30] um, I was running a little bit late, just with me getting ready. I'd bought a pair of eyelashes and one of them was broken and they were very big eyelashes. So I spent a very long time in makeup with them trying to fix that. Um, and then we had our I was running so late that when we had the final rehearsal on the stage, which is supposed to be the final dress rehearsal, everyone's supposed to be ready or nearly ready. I was. My makeup was half done. I had one eyelash on, and I was only wearing my jeans surrounded by everyone else, pretty much in full drag. [00:20:00] So I just remember running full speed down the stairs, got my makeup done, ran back up to my dressing room. I didn't even have a chance to look in a mirror while I got dressed. I had Pia who was with me. I didn't have a corset at that point, so I actually had a waste duct taped in, which sounds a lot more painful than it was. But then I got my dress on all my Julia on, grabbed my wig, turned around, looked at the mirror and just sort of stopped because I just couldn't recognise [00:20:30] myself. It's just such a It's like a shock, seeing that you can look so different. It's very, very unusual feeling. I don't think I can really explain anything that's similar to it. You mentioned about the diverse nature of the people in rehearsal and the participants, and I'm wondering, Had you ever been in a situation where there were such a range of people? And and [00:21:00] I'm thinking not only in terms of gender and sexuality, but also age. Is it quite unusual? Yeah, um, it is quite unusual. I mean, there the, um, oldest person in the show, I think, was in his in his sixties when I joined. And it was just for me what I found amazing was meeting a lot of people who fought, fought for equality and hearing their stories. And you know what a lot of people my age take for granted these days that we wouldn't have [00:21:30] if it wasn't for them. I just found it's amazing. I'd never have met them otherwise. And it's just I feel very honoured to have been able to speak to those people. But that also must work the other way around Where, Um, I think it's probably quite unusual to have that kind of intergenerational thing happening for older people being able to interact with the younger people. It's a really real pity that especially within our community, when our community is so close that there is such a divide. Um, and I know there is a little bit [00:22:00] of I always want to say animosity and you know, people who think that young people just take what we have for granted, and then there are very There are definitely the young people who think that we're undervalued or that, um, people don't respect us because we haven't had to fight um as much. And I think that's just a huge pity we don't have any room for that kind of [00:22:30] disagreement. And I think that everyone should, you know, have try and befriend anyone who they meet. And, you know, you can always learn something from someone new. Why do you think it works so well with the queen of the whole universe? Then why? Why is this special in terms of bringing all these people together? I think we all have a united goal. Um, and because it's all about something that is just so much fun. I mean, it's kind of hard to [00:23:00] be upset about it. Um, and because it is all about self expression and freedom and yeah, it's just such a positive atmosphere. I think it's actually quite hard to be negative when you're involved with it. So moving from the rehearsal period and then into the theatre environment Had you had you ever been in a theatre environment before, you know, like backstage. And, um, [00:23:30] not for a long time, um, in school, I had been involved with some, um, productions backstage. I did, you know, a V work and things a little bit, Um, but never anywhere near nothing that big. And the centre is huge, and I didn't quite realise how many people were going to be in the audience until Jonathan told us on the night that there were nearly 2000 people sitting out there, which is a little bit of a shock. You know, when you're standing on the other side of the curtain and [00:24:00] you can just hear this, it's halfway between a roar and a murmur just of people talking, and it's very yeah, I don't know. It was quite scary While the curtain was down when I found as soon as the curtain went up that fear just vanished because you can't actually see anything. You just see this big black wall. But do you feel some kind of energy coming from? Yeah, you do. Um, people who've done the show before [00:24:30] and done other stage work always told me how the audience calls to you. And I thought it just sounded, you know, one of those rubbish kind of things that people say that Jonathan was saying, Yeah, be careful or you'll fall off the front of the stage and you do find yourself and I noticed during the show that the line was at one point everyone was in the line and the line on the night of the show. It was much closer to the front of the stage than it had been in any of the rehearsals, and you would find yourself being pulled closer [00:25:00] to the front just by the energy of it all. I think it's not that you want to be the centre of attention. It's just that that's how it works. When you're on the stage, it's it's very difficult to explain. Yeah, when you first got into the theatre before the performance and you first stepped out on that stage, was that a bit of a mind shift? You know, going from like rehearsal space to suddenly you're on a stage and rather than a looking at a wall you're actually looking [00:25:30] at Yeah, well, because we've been rehearsing in the community hall, the Grey Community Hall and moving from that which is, you know, just about the same size as our stage. And that's it, um, into the actual, um auditorium. And you suddenly realise that it's real. You know that it's almost happening and that it's actually there's no such a big thing. That's yeah, very, you know, a bit of a kick when [00:26:00] you know you've got a couple of things you need to finish. I think everyone had a couple of things that aren't quite ready until the day. I know. When I was in Wellington, um, my head gear had lost some of its paint. And on the day I had an emergency mission out to the Mita 10 to buy some pink spray paint to respray my whole hair almost because it was flaking off the ball. What are the, um, tech [00:26:30] rehearsals like the tech rehearsal is a little bit odd for someone who hasn't been work through before, because they, quite often you'll start to do something and then they'll stop you so that they can work out the lighting or they'll start something. But that's the only part that the lights need to rehearse. So then you'll be on to the next part of the show. It's very much not about the cast for a tech rehearsal. Um, although generally, when we had the tech rehearsal we had, I think it was. We had several hours, so we had the tech rehearsal and then we had our regular [00:27:00] rehearsal. After that, did you find it was a lot of information to take in in terms of, you know, all the technical sides of things and the different aspects of the theatre, or they actually did a really good job of keeping anything too technical away from the cast. Basically, we got the information that we needed, and not too much more than that, because there's no point, you know, you worrying about things you don't need to worry about. Um, [00:27:30] we didn't even need to have too many marks on the stage, because by that point you knew where you were in relation to everybody else. And it was just translating from the hall onto the stage, which, you know, took a few little tweaks with Sarah the choreographer. But, you know, it was all I think it was quite a lot easier than I thought it might be. Do you think it was? Did you perceive an increase in kind of stress [00:28:00] levels? And I mean, were people getting kind of touchy, and I think some people might have, um I didn't really notice too much. Um, but I was mostly just too excited about the whole thing. Um, but on the night. Everyone is just even before the show. They're already in this amazing mood. I remember before the kitten went up in Auckland, they were playing the warm up music to the crowd, and we were all standing on the other side of the kitten in our formation, ready to start. [00:28:30] And, um, I think it was glee songs. And almost everyone is standing there lip singing. You know, there's very overblown dramatic drag acts going on on the other side of the but in complete silence because you couldn't make a noise. You couldn't step too heavily or anything. It was just Yeah, very unusual, very entertaining. And I think it just sort of helped to set the mood a bit. Getting that number of performers, uh, prepared just in terms of makeup and stuff. That must [00:29:00] be a real yeah. Um, the girls from Phoenix do an amazing job trying to get getting through everybody. It takes hours to get everyone through. I think they had three makeup calls and everyone you You were set for the time you had to arrive. And when you were being done and I was in the last call, So, um, by that point. There were all these other people who were ready, and I was not ready, but yeah. So what does that? What does that getting [00:29:30] makeup on? Involve? What? What do they do? Um, it's a bit of a process, because they have they bring in, you know, a huge team of girls. Um, and first off, you know, they have your foundation, and then they block your eyebrows, which basically they glue them down and then put makeup over the top so you turn into a completely blank canvas and you see all these people with it's almost like they've got no facial features except for their eyes and their mouth. And it's very unusual. Um, [00:30:00] and of course, for the men, they have to cover any shadow you might have or you might be going to have in the next sort of couple of hours. And then from there on, it's building up, you know, drawing on eyebrows and your makeup. Auckland. We had these stick on sequinned things under our eyes, and they were a bit interesting into the stage lights. You got these little sparkles going on? Yeah, it's a bit of a process. Everyone had to bring their own eyelashes [00:30:30] in terms of preparing yourself. Did you? I mean, like, were you shaving, like, for your legs and and and preparing your body that way? Yeah, you kind of had to, um, you can get away away from that a little bit by wearing a lot of stockings and tights. I know there's a lot of people wear like a pair of dancers, tights and then two pairs of stockings over the top of that just to avoid having to shave their legs. But, you know, you're probably going to have to shave your arms. [00:31:00] You're definitely gonna shave under your arms unless you're going to be wearing a shirt top with sleeves. But I don't think anyone really did that. Um, because you're trying to create the illusion, and it's all part of that. Yeah, I couldn't do the multiple stocking thing. It was just too slippery inside my shoes for me. I didn't want to risk it. Hey, so the show happens. And, um, what are your feelings? When [00:31:30] when you're on the show, How how's it? Uh, it's all a little bit of a blur. Um, I just remember standing on the stage. You know, when we got the final stop falling around, you're about to go on. Um the way it was set up, we had the cast was all split. So there were a small number of us, I think 12, maybe maybe 14 of us on the stage to start with. Um So it was half boys and half girls and split standing back [00:32:00] to back. So I was standing there staring at the back of the stage for our opening number, which was a man's world split into two halves, half sung by the boys and then half sung by the girls and standing there staring at the back of the stage. Um, I was getting really nervous because I knew everything that was going on behind me, um, that the boys are doing and you could hear the audience and just standing there going, I really hope I don't miss my queue. And as soon as I stepped [00:32:30] around and it just sort of all fell into place because you know the choreography so well, by that point, if I hear some of the songs, I almost fall into it Now, um, that it just flows and then once you've realised that you're not going to make a huge mistake, it just you can relax with it and enjoy it and just get into it. It's very high energy. It's very, very exhausting. But it's a lot of fun and you [00:33:00] don't sleep that night generally because you just got too much going on in your head. And I remember when we went to Wellington, there was two after parties and the second one which didn't start until one or two in the morning or something like that, and we were all supposed to be flying home the next day. It was, Yeah, that's quite a neat thing, having an after party where the performers go out there and that was amazing and just mingle. Yeah, getting to meet the audience. Um, [00:33:30] it was quite funny because when I walked out of my dressing room and everyone was standing in the corridor before we went on stage and Jonathan just goes points at me and he says that one, that's the one everyone's going to think is a girl and yeah, I was like, Oh, I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not. But then afterwards, when we met the audience, I actually had a few people come up to me and go. Excuse me, Are you a boy? And there was one woman. She goes, You are a boy, aren't you? And I was like, Yes, I am. She's like, Oh, great. [00:34:00] Can you come and tell my husband we have a bit? He was a little bit upset about that, but, um, yeah, my family all thought I looked exactly like my cousin who came to the show except about a foot taller than her. It must be really neat to have that support from the family. Yeah, my family has been amazing. Um, yeah, they're very, very lucky to have them. My dad is actually, um, [00:34:30] my dad was actually very keen for me to do Act two this year When I said that I wanted to, um so he's actually sponsoring me for it. So his or his company is sponsoring me so that we can actually afford to do these things because obviously I'm, um just very recently out from being a student and I'm an apprentice hairdresser, so I don't earn that much money, but um, yeah. Helping helping out of it. And the family is all sort of pulling together. So what is the concept for your [00:35:00] Act two this year? Can you tell me that, um, I miss Spain this year, So, um yes, it's all very. There are a lot of frills involved, some very, very big dresses planned, and we have all the fabric for them. It's just a matter of putting it together. Um, I don't know. I can't really give away too much about the actual performance, but yeah, five minutes is a very long time in some ways and a very short amount of time. In others, it's It's one [00:35:30] of those kind of time frames where you just have to hit it right at the start, don't you? You don't have time to really develop an idea. Yeah, um, some of the best performances from what I I feel from what I've seen are the ones that do have a little bit of a storyline going on or a feel that goes through them. Um, and it's just trying to create that in five minutes, but without it being too too much of the same thing, you need to have changes. You need to have costume [00:36:00] changes because the audience loves that. I mean, the favourite. One of the greatest ones I saw was, um I was helping out with Actually was Miss France and then watching the video. And I think he had seven costume changes. And that's not including the backup dancers. So it's just it gives it another dimension to be able to do those sorts of things and to have sets that are built. And, yeah, I seem to be trying to rope my uncles and things to helping build sets. They're all booked tickets, [00:36:30] so hopefully they'll help out. So so where do you get your biggest kick from? Is it in the kind of the creativity in terms of like, creating stuff before the show? Is it at the show? Is it after the show? Where where does that come for you? It's probably at or after the show. I think leading up to it it's still great, you know, building everything and coming up with all these ideas is a lot of fun. But I just think getting that reward for it almost just, you know, having people cheer is [00:37:00] If you've never had, like an audience cheering at you before, it's just the most. That's a very energising kind of feeling. It just makes you feel very like all of your hard work is paid off and it's valued and these people appreciate it. You know, they might not necessarily know how much hard work you've put in, but it's got value. How do you come down from such a, um, intense experience? Yeah, I did find afterwards I was I felt a bit lost. Um, I've [00:37:30] used to having these rehearsals so often and seeing this group of people every week or twice a week, and then it's just all over. It's a bit of a sad thing, you know, saying goodbye to everyone. Um, but, you know, that's when the rest of your life suddenly comes rushing back and all those things you've neglected over the last few months, you need to sort them out. Yeah, Or maybe that's just me. I've always got something to do, but yeah, I know it is quite a sad feeling once it's all over. [00:38:00] Which is why I think this year is going to be a bit difficult for a lot of people. And what are your thoughts on on it being the last, uh, queen of the whole universe? It is sad. It's an amazing show, and it's I think it's probably it's reached a lot of people. It's raised a lot of money. Um, I really hope that something carries on in some form, but, um, yeah, I understand. It's, you know, it's a lot of work for someone to put in. Oh, it's a lot of work for everyone to put in, but especially [00:38:30] for, um, Jonathan to do. I mean, I can't imagine how much of his time is devoted to this months, months and months, but yeah, it will be sad. But 10 years is amazing. And, you know, the amount of money that has been raised is just staggering. Really. If you had the opportunity on that last performance to, uh, address the crowd in some way, is there anything that you would want [00:39:00] to say to them? Um, I'd want them to take the feeling that they get from the show that feeling of joy and acceptance, and there's a huge feeling of love that goes with it and to keep that with them, you know, don't leave it behind and treat everyone else that they come into with that same compassion and happiness that the show brings to people like, I think it's it's amazing just the [00:39:30] way that this hugely diverse group of people and the hugely diverse audience all come together for this one night and everyone has an amazing time, and I just wish, you know the rest of people's lives could be like that.
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