Erasure's Andy Bell to star in QUEERETERIA TV at Above The Stag Theatre in April
Above The Stag presents
Andy Bell is Torsten in… QUEERETERIA TV
Andy Bell is Torsten in… QUEERETERIA TV
Written by Barney Ashton-Bullock & Christopher Frost
Directed by Robert McWhir
Directed by Robert McWhir
10 April — 28 April
19.30 Tuesday - Saturday & 18.00 Sunday
ABOVE THE STAG THEATRE
72 Albert Embankment London, SE1 7TP
Press Night – Friday 12th April, 7:30pm
As one of the most popular synth pop bands in the UK has ever produced, Erasure penned over 200 songs and have sold over 25 million albums worldwide, 5 of them hitting the UK number one spot and have enjoyed 17 Top 10 UK singles. Loved by everyone from teenyboppers to ravers they hold a special place in the UK’s heart, and of course the band is also immensely popular with within the LGBT community, for whom frontman Andy Bell has become a gay icon.
Continuing the project he began with ‘Torsten The Beautiful Saint’ and ‘Torsten The Beautiful Libertine’ Now Andy Bell revises his dystopian alter ego Torsten in… QUEERETERIA TV a brand new stage show. Andy will be joined by Peter Straker (Hair, Ken Hill’s Original Phantom of the Opera, Doctor Who), established actor Matthew Baldwin and writer-performer Barney Ashton-Bullock.
Diva driven pastiche, deft wordplay and berserk comedy mayhem - this is dystopia, but not as you know it. The UK’s only LGBT+ theatre brings audiences a queer vision of the not too distant future, Andy Bell and opening in tandem with the release of his all new solo album ‘Torsten In Queereteria’.
Welcome to Post-Armageddon England, where a merry band of surviving dysfunctional queers have taken over a television station to recreate their all time favourite TV programme ‘Club Queereteria’, broadcast live from the ruins of a infamous cruising club. Behold as talentless ego-manic stars set about passing off various shades of sheer filth and deliberate trash as enervating entertainment…
Andy Bell plays Torsten, a state sanctioned entertainer who - though initially sedated so as to not outshine the pathological narcissist ‘all round entertainer’, Lady Domina Bizarre - gradually remembers and celebrates his elongated, semi-immortal life through song. He pays emotional tribute to past times, dead lovers and present friends and homage to the cruising Club Queereteria.
A celebration of love, loyalty, song and looking forward, the production also serves as a savage indictment of reductive tabloid TV ‘trashmissions’ and the efforts stupefying entertainment takes to subjugate and control the masses.
‘Torsten In Queereteria’ is out on April 12th, on CD and to download.
LISTINGS
Andy Bell is Torsten in... QUEERETERIA TV
10 April — 28 April
19.30 Tuesday - Saturday & 18.00 Sunday
19.30 Tuesday - Saturday & 18.00 Sunday
72 Albert Embankment London, SE1 7TP
Press Night – 12 April at 7.30pm
Previews 10 & 11 April priced at £21. Thereafter tickets £28
Written by Barney Ashton-Bullock & Christopher Frost
Directed by Robert McWhir
Directed by Robert McWhir
Starring Andy Bell, Peter Straker and Barney Ashton-Bullock
