We sat down for a chat with kit Ford, writer and performer of the hour long solo musical-comedy-poetry–monologue-cabaret Narcissistic Reflections On A Queer Childhood.
Your show blends comedy, poetry, and cabaret into an hour-long solo performance. What inspired you to combine such diverse styles, and how did you find the balance between them to tell your story effectively?
I don’t think I can identify specifically what inspired me to do it in such a way — it was more like I began writing, and then as I came to each moment I was trying to explore I was like, this should maybe be a song, or a poem, or a lip sync. So much of the show is also a homage to things I’d consumed and adored as a kid though — films and books and music and clothing — so telling it all in one strict way felt limiting and untrue somehow. There is no one way to say anything — fucking around with form and style is, however, sometimes the closest you’ll be able to get to expressing what you really want.
The show is deeply autobiographical and focuses on growing up queer. Were there any moments during the creation process where you were surprised by something new you discovered about your own journey?
It was really weird actually — because I think everyone (be that straight or queer) has their bank of anecdotes. The stories that they’ll tell over and over again when meeting new people, or at a dinner party, or as some kind of ice breaker. There’s a whole thing around memory and self-actualisation that I was reading about the other day around those stories that we embellish and ritually recite over and over, but I won’t get into that now! But I know that I have definitely have my own selection of those — like the time I accidentally went to a beatboxing class for seven year olds, or did a speech in Parliament Square dressed as an enormous carrot. And yet those were not the things I reached for as I was writing the show. In fact, what happened instead was all these memories surfaced that I had genuinely not thought about for years — some of them I think I had never actually remembered before. And a lot of the people who know me well, after seeing the show for the first time, said that they found it really strange that they’d never heard me talk about so much of the stuff that was in there. So I think I was really surprised by what ended up presenting itself as important when I was doing all this thinking about my gender and performance.
You mention the universal appeal of radical and honest specificity, like with artists such as Hannah Gadsby and Rob Madge. How do you think sharing your personal queer story in this way can help others feel seen and connected?
I couldn’t stop crying when I saw Rob Madge’s My Son’s a Queer at Edinburgh Fringe in 2022. It was so open, and so theirs, and yet me and I think every queer person in the audience could see so much of all of us in what they were sharing. I was so delighted, and a little taken aback, when someone said after the first performance that “every queer childhood was the same”. This is a show about my life, and yet others could see their own reflections in mine. I think and hope that the show will make other queer people feel less alone.
The show is about returning to the ‘comfort and ease of identity before you had the words for it.’ What do you hope people will take away from that idea, especially those who might still be figuring out their own identities?
I hope that everyone will be left mediating on their own childhoods. And will be able to recall or remember a feeling akin to what I was describing there. I think it is so important to just allow yourself to have that feeling — to not try and explain it, or write it down, or even necessarily share it. To just hold it, and claim it as yours.
Your show has already been performed to critical success in Cambridge. What are you most excited about bringing to the London stage, and what new elements can audiences expect from this version of the performance?
I am so thrilled to be able to share it with a wider audience, and to perform it across two nights. I’ve been thinking a lot more about the body recently (I mean literally who hasn’t), but as a result of this I am hoping that the physicality and movement of the piece is elevated in this run. Having also now entered the realworldTM somewhat now, I have also been working on a lot more mediations around the industry and queer and trans performers, which form a more central part of the work now. I also hope to retain all of the energy and vulnerability of the original! A lot going on. I am shit scared but so excited to share it with London!!!!