Cabaret – David Hoyle Reads The Classics (BSL Interpreted)

This event will have a BSL interpreter 

David Hoyle Reads The Classics

+ Special Guests

Join the iconoclastic performance artist David Hoyle and some sensational special guests as they share hilarious and provocative takes on the timeless classic texts they love and loathe. 

Somewhere between a reading group and performance exorcism, prepare to dust off those covers and stretch out those spines, as the lineup revisit formative books that have made us the readers and writers we are today. Expect cutting cabaret performances, raucous readings and if we have time an abstract shape or two…

Featuring some of the UK’s best and brightest LGBTQIA+ writers and performers including award-winning live artist Stacy Makishi, performance artist and theatre maker Naomi Wood, and multidisciplinary entity Princess Bestman.

David Hoyle

Hoyle came to prominence in the 1990s as the Divine David, an anti-drag queen whose lacerating social commentary was offset by breathtaking instances of self-recrimination and even self-harm. Following a couple of outré late-night Channel 4 shows Hoyle killed the Divine David off during a spectacular show at the Streatham Ice Arena in 2000. He returned in 2005 and began performing live again, under his own name. This time round, the chances of serious injury in any given show seemed greatly reduced, but Hoyle’s biting satire, bravura costumes, wicked comic timing and compelling charisma remained intact. Over the past 15 years he has performed award winning theatre shows, installations and cabarets. An artist of repute, he recently exhibited his paintings in a solo exhibition in Paris.

In 2024 The Aviva Studios in Manchester held a three-week long retrospective of David’s career (so far) called Please Feel Free to Ignore My Work.

“He is raw, sometimes a bit frightening, but also thrilling in his look-no-hands recklessness.” – The Guardian

“There is nothing quite like it: bold and unique, electrifying and disarmingly humane” – Time Out

Stacy Makishi

Stacy Makishi is a transplant from Hawaii who found paradise in Dalston, London. Like a bonsai plant, Stacy is small but old. She has been making art for nearly 40 years. A cross-fertilisation of theatre, comedy, film and visual art, her work is as complex as it is accessible; humorous as it is challenging; visual as it is literate. It ranges across solo performances for stage, large-scale outdoor participatory projects and intimate one-to-ones. Also a teacher, director and mentor in international demand, Stacy believes in art’s transformative power and strives to share her creative process with others in order to put more aloha into the world.

Naomi Wood

Naomi is a queer multi-disciplinary performance artist and theatre maker merging storytelling with spoken word. She creates pieces of joyful disobedience celebrating rebellion and revelling in rage whilst maintaining a healthy preoccupation with whimsy and joy.

Her solo spoken word show ‘Gobbess’ which is currently touring the UK, celebrates imperfection and has been described as ‘pure magic and laugh-out-loud humour’, ‘raw, powerful and incisive’ and ‘a mic drop of women’s experiences’. Naomi also teaches creative writing workshops across the UK that encourage writers to be playful and take risks in telling stories.

Princess Bestman

Princess Bestman (they/she), is a multidisciplinary entity inspired by their identity as a Black, Queer, Foster Care experienced individual. Princess is continuously shifting, morphing and seeking alternative forms of storytelling ; leading their creative style to be described as experimental yet intentional.