Michael Beddoes | Sequins / 2019

female of the species

by Douglas Messerli

 

Amy Clarke (screenplay), Michael Beddoes (director) Sequins / 2019 [18 minutes]

 

It is the late 1990s in Blackpool, England, and 17-year-old Paul Bigsby (Robbie Gaskell) has gotten up early to put on a purple dress and a black wig to dance out a routine that given his use of earplugs, we can’t hear—along with his parents. The alarm clock, however, soon rings its 8:00 a.m. signal, and a pounding at his door, presumably from his father (Ben Willbond), insists he come down immediately or he’ll be late for school.

    His school day starts badly as usual, as the school bully pushes him to the floor in the school hallway, calling him a ponce, and then bends down as if in sorrow for hurting him, only send him sprawling further.

    In the classroom the bully again threatens Paul and attempts to trip him up, but Paul’s best friend Stacey, real name Anastasia (Nicole Louise Lewis) trips the bully Rick Hennessy (Marcus Geldard) instead, the bully now determined to truly beat up his “faggy boy” until the teacher, Mrs. Coughlin (Erin Geraghty) intrudes and breaks up the entire foray.

     Mrs. Coughlin mentions that the students can sign up for the school show, but notices Paul’s name is not on the list, noting that she has signed him up herself. Evidently, he is a known school talent, a singer who she’d like to perform some Sinatra—another reason presumably why he is not popular with the other boys.

      A rolled-up ball a paper lobbed to him by Rick shows a figure hanging from a galley with the name Paul Gaysby underneath. And an accidental meetup with Rick and his gang after school sends Paul, accordingly, on the run, as he escapes into the large neighborhood warehouse-like gay drag bar Sequins, for the first time in the world of his dreams.

     Of course, it isn’t yet open and Paul’s clearly underage, but he has no choice but hangout in a bar bathroom stall, where he falls asleep. When he awakens, the music is pounding and the drag queen Mimi Le Purr (James Dreyfus) is finishing up her banter. Her director notices a new customer sitting alone in the place and suggests she have a word with him, she at first refusing for fear of getting arrested! “So are you here to write a review for the school paper, or is this merely personal,” she quips, Paul’s face lighting up with absolute delight.

        “I wanna do what you do,” he finally stutters out. “I want to be a drag queen.”

        It’s certainly an odd goal for a 17-year-old boy in in the late 90s, and Mimi plays out her line with flair: “Personal interest then.”

        Paul begs for her to help him, Mimi responding, “Me? Be a fairy drag mother?” When he praises her performance, she relents, taking his hand and saying, “All right, come with me Alice.”

        “Where are we going?”

        “Down the rabbit hole.”

      Introducing him to the others, she says, “Girls, Mamma has a daughter,” while they shout out, “Fresh meat.”

        Suddenly to the shock of his parents, Paul is rushing off each afternoon to football practice. Only his friend Stacey is in on his deception, offering up a borrowed football kit to cover his activities.

        But a few days later he arrives at his drag-performance lessons severely bruised. Rick has gotten to him. The drag queen in male attire this time, cheers him up better than any parents attempt might succeed. With Stacey at his side, he rehearses at the club, she presuming he’s going to perform this at the school show, but suggesting that if he tried it, he’d be lynched. He’s adapted her real name, Anastasia as his drag name.

     Meanwhile, when his parents see him and Stacey in a hug they are further amazed at the heterosexual progress he has made in just a few months and are delighted by what they observe.

      But even the idea that Paul is performing at the school show is still “nancy business” to his father, who isn’t at all pleased by the idea of having to attend the affair.

       When Paul finally appears in the hallway where the other performers away in a red-sequined dress and red hair everyone stops what they are doing to stare, the audience as well. Robbie Gaskell as Paul is a stunning beauty.

       Meanwhile, we get a glimpse of the parents patiently sitting through some of the other “local talent” such as a heavy-set girl attempting an early rap performance. The final performance is about to begin and Miss Coughlin, who’s gotten a glimpse of the transformed Paul, suggests he’s going to perform tonight in a “slightly different capacity,” Stacey rushing in to switch the musical score of the pianist.

       Anastasia appears to the shock of all, Paul momentarily facing up the terror of their imagined reactions. But with Gaskell’s performance of “The Female of the Species” (by Thomas Scott, Francis Griffiths, James Edwards, and Andrew Parle) how can anyone not be awed? Even the bully sits like a squat little frog in the audience, speechless.

       While Sequins is certainly not a profound moment of entertainment, it is a great deal of fun.

 

Los Angeles, January 12, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2023).