Pete's 2023 Breaking Death News Thread

[SuperBacon]

Paul O'Grady was fantastic.

Used to love watching the Paul O'Grady show with my dinner. Always incredibly entertaining and what a quick wit he had.

[FLips]

Genuinely gutted at Paul O’Grady. Grew up watching him as Lily Savage with my Grandparents and then later as himself on Love of Dogs. Seemed like such a quick witted, interesting and nice bloke.
I maybe wouldn’t go as far as national treasure but he was certainly up there in the conversation.

[Thunderplex]

This one had gutted us.  Came across as a truly lovely man, and his love of animals absolutely shone through.  You could tell with the anger on his face how he would kick the living shit out of any of the dog owners who had mistreated them, and the fact that no matter how filthy, stinky or mangey a dog was, he would be on the floor cuddling it just elevated him.  Very, very sad news.

[Keith Houchen]

We shouldn’t let people forget how political he was too. I know he was friends with Cilla Black but he fucking hated the tories with a passion and stood up for the working class. I love this. 

 

[BomberPat]

he was brilliant. He had this thing about him, where the only comparison that comes to mind is to Terry Pratchett, where he was seen as a bit of a safe, cosy national treasure, and that misconception allowed him to get away with being genuinely subversive and fantastically angry about injustice, on primetime TV and a Radio 2 slot. Above all, very, very funny.

A bit of a tangent, but it's one of the reasons I dislike RuPaul's Drag Race UK - there's a brilliant tradition of drag and queer culture in this country that Lily Savage exemplified, and that's getting eroded by mimicking the American style, or speaking in American drag slang because it hits the right TV format points for the show. You'd never have caught Lily Savage saying "I'm serving looks". 

[Keith Houchen]

9 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

A bit of a tangent, but it's one of the reasons I dislike RuPaul's Drag Race UK - there's a brilliant tradition of drag and queer culture in this country that Lily Savage exemplified, and that's getting eroded by mimicking the American style, or speaking in American drag slang because it hits the right TV format points for the show. You'd never have caught Lily Savage saying "I'm serving looks". 

And you wouldn’t get them saying “Looks like we’ve got some help with the washing up” when plod raided a show wearing latex gloves so they wouldn’t catch the aids! 
 

The guy who used to live in the flat upstairs was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn. He did his PhD on the history of British drag. He said there was so much more to it over here so that’s why he came here to research it. Thankfully his paper is being turned into a book so I’m really looking forward to reading that!

[FLips]

16 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

A bit of a tangent, but it's one of the reasons I dislike RuPaul's Drag Race UK - there's a brilliant tradition of drag and queer culture in this country that Lily Savage exemplified, and that's getting eroded by mimicking the American style, or speaking in American drag slang because it hits the right TV format points for the show. You'd never have caught Lily Savage saying "I'm serving looks". 

As someone who couldn’t get away with the UK version of Drag Race it’s definitely for the reason you said. That, and the ones who weren’t trying to copy the US style always came across as mean spirited and forced. The comedy wasn’t there.
From what I’ve read, O’Grady wasn’t a fan of Drag Race either.

[SuperBacon]

3 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

The guy who used to live in the flat upstairs was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn. He did his PhD on the history of British drag. He said there was so much more to it over here so that’s why he came here to research it. Thankfully his paper is being turned into a book so I’m really looking forward to reading that!

That sounds incredibly interesting and I'd agree that Britain has the biggest drag history (no facts to be back this up by the way, just my thoughts)

Off topic, but I assume it comes from our history of victorian music halls and the like?

[BomberPat]

Just now, SuperBacon said:

Off topic, but I assume it comes from our history of victorian music halls and the like?

Partly - Music Hall is definitely where a lot of what we'd recognise as British drag, the kind of end-of-the-pier stuff, was born, similar to Vaudeville in the US. They're both mediums where, when you study them, you constantly see catchphrases or jokes and think, "fucking hell, that's where that comes from". 

Before that, it's likely tied to women not being permitted to act in the 17th Century, so men taking female roles, which eventually became a gay subculture in its own right (insomuch as we can ascribe contemporary ideas of "gay" to a time where such a thing didn't exist). By the time of music hall/variety, where the appeal came much more about individual personalities than about a play or wider narrative, and when acts were restricted to short sets and sketches, female impersonators were able to become more of a standalone act, or at least part of one, rather than "just" a man playing a female role in a larger production. 

Dan Leno was one of the biggest names in music hall, and he specialised (though not exclusively) in female roles that would almost definitely be recognised as drag now. 

It also all ties in to British pantomime tradition, panto dames, audience interaction and bawdy humour, though I'm not sure when panto became what we'd now recognise it as.

[Keith Houchen]

9 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Off topic, but I assume it comes from our history of victorian music halls and the like?

Even further back! Women not being allowed to perform on stage in Shakespeares day so men played the women’s roles played a part. Performers would crank up the farcical nature of it. 
 

Edit - What Pat said!

Edited March 29, 2023 by Keith Houchen
Where’s me washboard

[Fatty Facesitter]

Gutted. A force for good in a world full of shithouses. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

4 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

also all ties in to British pantomime tradition, panto dames, audience interaction and bawdy humour, though I'm not sure when panto became what we'd now recognise it as.

Probably the first pantomime dame that became popular was Dan Leno in the 1890s and panto at that time has a lot of elements that survive in modern times. 

Paul O'Grady was a superb performer, and will be missed greatly. Waking up to the RIPete of his passing was an awful way to start the day. 

[BomberPat]

Aye, I knew Leno had been a panto dame, just wasn't sure if the tradition of dames and innuendo in panto started with him or not. When writing about the history of wrestling, I had a ton of unexpected deep dives, and one has been into the history of music hall and vaudeville, so a lot of this stuff is fresh in my mind, and I'm reading a book on vaudeville at the moment. For all its shared DNA with music hall, panto's still a bit of a grey area for me in terms of the whys and whens.

Back to O'Grady, it's one of those bittersweet deaths where my Twitter feed is absolutely full of great clips, memories, and stories of how principled and brilliant he was, and that makes the whole thing a little less depressing. Though you just have to hope that people were telling him all of this when he was still around - I'm sure they were, and I'm sure he was having none of it.

[Factotum]

Yeah I'll add to the praise for him. Absolutely quick witted and could be viscous as anything when he chose to be, but also warm and compassionate. The fact that he had such a successful character and then became incredibly successful again as himself is quite something.

I'll also add to the I don't like Drag Race UK. When you see what Paul could do with Lily Savage (the backstory etc) it amazes me how nothing those competing on that show are.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Factotum

[Thunderplex]

Forgot how bloody funny he was.  Lily Savage, Scouse part time prostitute was one of the funniest acts of the time.  Completely OTT and very real at the same time.  His wit just shone through all the time, which made his time on Blankety Blank up there with Les Dawsons.  He did a document in China a few years ago, and the producers kept telling him that the person he was meeting was called Mr Wu, then changing it last minute to the real name to confuse him.  He got madder and madder, and it got funnier and funnier.  Absolute British legend, who will be sorely missed.