It’s approaching Christmas in London. On Charing Cross Road, casinos twinkle and crowds mingle, as the frenetic festivities of our frantic city get into full Baileys-swigging swing.
This area of London in the months leading up to Christmas and New Year is one of the most alive, visually arresting square miles in the world. Buses careen precariously across Cambridge Circus as Harry Potter fans levitate with excitement in the queue for the Cursed Child, and a few streets away, Lady Lloyd saves Soho one Vivienne Westwood accessory at a time.
We’re tucked away from the hubbub in an oasis of oak-hewn calm – stepping into The Phoenix Artist Club is like stepping back two hundred years. All smokily crushed velvet and clandestine sensibilities, it’s a private members’ establishment ensconced under The Phoenix Theatre.
Sitting across from us on a particularly puffed up pouffe, is self-dubbed internationally ignored superstar Vanity von Glow. Uniquely ethereal and vivaciously pernicious, Vanity doesn’t just own her image – she buys it up and converts it into luxury flats. This evening, the prelude to an intimate show for friends and fans, she’s wearing a dress that would make Elsa from Frozen burst into tears and move to Margate. Complimented perfectly with a necklace from the King’s Landing branch of Swarovski (372 Pigrun Alley, KL2 CSL, Westeros).
She sits regarding us regally with a clinking gin and tonic in one hand and a pot of coleslaw in the other. She loves coleslaw. Her weekly show at The Phoenix has become a bit of a Soho insititution. It’s drawn praise and attention from critics and patrons alike, not to mention fellow artists; her guests have included connoisseur of poppers o’ clock pop, Sophie Ellis-Bextor; the cast of wry, irreverent musical The Book Of Mormon; and most recently, antipodean drag princess Courtney Act.
Now, she’s striking out on her own with a new show, A Night In Soho. We’ve seen the preview. It’s sparklingly professional, genuinely unique, and achingly funny.
“I’m a live singin’, jager-bomb slingin’ pianist!” she says, knocking back some of her g&t “With fewer live musicians performing on the LGBT cabaret circuit than you might expect, I’m proud to represent. I love acts like Hope Springs and Alfie Ordinary whose performances walk the line between tragic and comic, where music and melancholy melt together on stage and who sing and play live.”
It’s a good summation of what’s important to Vanity. She doesn’t have time for the lip-synched YAAASING of the school of RuPaul drag, instead focusing on inherent talent and unforgettable attitude. We ask which celebrities she’d like to have over for Christmas dinner.
“The Olsen twins, because they wouldn’t eat much, which leaves more foie gras for me,” she munches thoughtfully on some coleslaw “I do require sustenance you see; I lived with Nancy Clench for two years and during that time was somewhat undernourished as she is known to steal food off ones plate when one isn’t looking.”
“Of course, you need a laugh at Christmas don’t you. So Bette Midler can sit next to me and Wendy Williams at the top of the table. And of course I’d invite along my dear friend Elizabeth Hurley to fill any gaps in conversation with talk of her new range of organic home-grown chutneys from her little farm in Buckinghamshire.”
Her response to what she does when she’s not in drag, confirms our assertion that she’s unapologetic: “I write apology letters to all the people I have offended in the past week, and then bin them.”
As the susurration of her anticipant audience grows on the other side of the curtain, we get chatting about politics and the state of panic this year has instilled in people – a subject Vanity is philosophically blasé about.
“Most artists thrive in counterculture,” she says, waving a bejeweled hand “Their voices are better validated when dissident, so as far as being a performer goes, it’s kind of a gift. I’m usually advised to steer clear of political discourse as I am privately an amoral fascist who advocates the systematic annihilation of large swathes of society. For example: women who wear Ugg Boots, people who call other people ‘babes’ and homosexual simpletons who propagate the myth that Britney Spears is a worthwhile entertainer.”
We move on to discuss her love life, a subject she approaches with a wintery indifference that would put Tilda Swinton to shame. “I have no time for male companionship. Occasionally I will take a younger lover but largely as an instructional enterprise for their betterment. Generally speaking I am opposed to carnal union, except in cases of absolute erotic emergency.”
It’s almost showtime. As a sophisticatedly hedonistic mélange of journalists, actors, drag queens and socialites take their seats, we just have enough time for Vanity to do a quick summation of her show.
“Every Sunday night, I do two shows back-to-back. The early show ‘A Night In Soho’ is a sit-down cabaret show and a push-back against the queer cultural decay happening in our beloved heartland around Old Compton Street and the West End. The later show (the ‘artist’s show’) is less formal and I really get to let my hair down and let it all hang out. What I love about Sunday nights is getting to do the intimate ‘A Night In Soho’ show for people who have never seen an act like myself before, who have come to experience some of the magic of old Soho, and then later in the night doing the raucous ‘artist’s show’ for members and the regulars with power ballads, diva anthems, double-vodkas and melodrama. For me it’s a thrill to give two tangibly different performances and since this is the Phoenix Artist Club, you never know who will join me on the stage.”
• A Night In Soho is every Sunday at The Phoenix Artist Club, 1 Phoenix Street, WC2H 8BU. 8:30pm.
