Tue 4 Oct 2011 In: Hall of Fame View at Wayback View at NDHA
Buckwheat (left) and Tess Tickle (right) Buckwheat and Tess Tickle are delving into the depths of Auckland's drag world for a special 'living history' show in the Late at the Museum series. We chat to Edward Cowley about how times have changed and what keeps Buckwheat going. The half an hour show by the royal pair on Thursday evening will be part of a night hosted by blogger and media commentator Russell Brown and based on the theme 'Life in the Margins'. "It'll be about our story, how we started and how we're still going," explains Edward Cowley, the man under Buckwheat's piles of make-up and elaborate costumes. "It will be about the paths that we've taken in order to still be doing it 20-something odd years later." Cowley says the performance will explore how and why Buckwheat and Tess have survived in a world where plenty of performers come and go. "It's about what drives us, when quite often on a Saturday we'd like to stay in and watch a movie." The half an hour slot means the pair will really get to the nitty gritty of where they started from, their career highlights, the influences that have kept them going and the changes they have seen in the time they have been performing. It will be centred on the all-important dressing room, where drag queens always get ready for their nights and eventually download at the end of it. "Especially in the old days when we first started, it was only in the dressing rooms that we ever got ready at the club or venue, and we got out of drag before we went home, you never went anywhere in drag publicly really," he explains. "On the odd occasions when I started [wearing drag in public] you could guarantee that if I was driving along and saw a policeman coming the other way , there'd be a u-turn and the lights would be going on and they'd be pulling you over for a little chat. "Whereas nowadays if you roll up at a breath testing stop you get 'hi Buckwheat how are you?' There's been a change in people's attitudes, it went mainstream, which was sort of post-Priscilla." So what is Cowley's secret to keeping Buckwheat as vibrant and fabulous and approachable as ever? "You've got to take the good with the bad," he explains. "Big shows with big budgets are great, but I also love the smaller and more intimate events. When you're doing a dinner and everyone is laughing and having a good time and you're enhancing the mood so much that it's a joyous occasion, I really get a complete kick from that." So Buckwheat will keep performing until 'it's time to hang up the stilettos', which means as long as Cowley thinks his alter-ego can look half decent and pull off a show. And that will be forever we hope! You can see Buckwheat and Tess Tickle and their living drag history at Late at the Museum on Thursday night. Full details are here Jacqui Stanford - 4th October 2011