Cambridge, I’m coming home!

I started performing as Electra when I was at Cambridge with my drag sisters DENIM (www.tatler.com/gallery/denim-drag-night), taking over the Union and turning the historical room full of hot air into a room full of hot air and sweatpants. DENIM was the first drag night ever at Cambridge, started by queer icon and my drag mother, Glamrou (Amrou Al Kadhi, whose recent book Unicorn has been published to rave reviews).

DENIM went on to perform at the Soho Theatre, Hyde Park, across Europe, a set at Glastonbury with Florence and the Machine and a particular highlight performing at the Chiltern Firehouse, Marylebone, where Kate Moss left the glowing review “I think they’re called Denim”. This is, however, Electra’s first time going solo. That’s right, she is the Beyoncé, the Zayn Malik or the Camilla Cabello of DENIM.

At Cambridge I was president of CUMTS and spent more time on the stage and in the bar of the ADC than in any lecture or supervision. It is so exciting to be coming back home with this amazing show, written by Isla van Tricht and directed by Tash Hyman.

Electra is not a girl, not yet a woman, staring down the barrel of who she’s going to be, on the eve of her 18th birthday party, trying to discover unity within herself when the different facets of her identity feel so at odds. Through songs and flashbacks, Electra wrestles with this question; can she tell her queer friends she’s Jewish and her Jewish friends she’s queer? You’re invited to her party to find out.

Glamrou always taught me that drag is a great way to trojan your politics into a fun and accessible (our aim was always to make DENIM the Disney of the drag world) format. Performing as Electra allows me to be visible as Jewish and to say what I feel about antisemitism and the complexities of identity through the disarming language of comedy, song and drag. In many ways Electra empowers me and educates me to be a better person, more aware of other minority experiences. And in another way she is like therapy because any bad stuff that happens to me can be passed on to her to deal with and wrestle through.

Personally, I have grappled with my identity for many years. In a world of polarisation – Left/Right, leave/remain, like/dislike, Britney/Christina – we are pulled in so many different directions and forced to choose binaries and pick sides. My personal experiences of discrimination and racially-motivated abuse – being punched, spat on and called “kike” – made me realise that there was a real need to be a visible and proud Jew in a time of rising antisemitism from the Left and Right wings of politics.

So I approached the supremely talented Isla van Tricht (playwright and lyricist whose work has been performed in London, Edinburgh and off-Broadway) to write a one-person show in which Electra could explore these ideas with more time and space, with story, humour, and music. The work was programmed by JW3 (London’s Jewish Cultural Centre) for one night before a three-night sell-out run at the Other Palace. Off the back of those performances, Becoming Electra is heading out on the road touring venues across the UK.

And she can’t wait to come back for one night only to the place where it all began! Come and welcome Electra Cute home; listen to uplifting, heart-warming, and raucously funny storytelling alongside pop, musical theatre classics and the odd original sung by the kween herself.

As put by The Scotsman: “Listen to Electra sing and your soul will be healed.” Who doesn’t want that?

Becoming Electra will be showing at the ADC Theatre at 11pm for one night only, on Tuesday 19th November.