Mastering the art of negativity

Mastering the art of negativity

Ash Flanders has quite a job on his hands convincing audiences to come see a show about negativity.

But if anyone had the ability to bottle and mass distribute the funnier side of cultural tragedies and personal failures, it’d be this Melbourne queen of camp and cattiness.

One of the stars of the VAC’s Queer as FxxK series and co-founder of Sisters Grimm, a theatre company that specialises in high-camp and trashy comedies, Flanders will remount his 2011 Hares and Hyenas show Negative Energy Inc at St Kilda’s Theatre Works as part of Midsumma.

“It’s a show that celebrates the terrible state the world is in,” Flanders said.

“You know the It Gets Better Project? This is my It Only Gets Worse antidote, because it doesn’t get better for stupid people.”

Celebrities, pop culture and religion can all expect to be called out in the show, but Flanders said the audience will also get to know some of his own, less than positive, history.

“It’s a personal show, like having a conversation with an intense friend,” he said.

“It’s hard being a middle class white boy from the ‘burbs and I’m going to tell you all about it.

“I was brought up a huge Christian and went to Christian youth camps for about 10 years until that clearly conflicted with my lifestyle.”

Flanders said his problems as an out performer also provided good source material.

“It’s interesting being in a business where people are supposed to be creative and open-minded but can be quite the opposite,” he said.

“You don’t see people like me on TV or in big scale productions a lot of the time, it’s very closeted. I tell the story of an agent that really liked me and went to the head of the agency who asked if I was gay and when she found out just said ‘I’m not interested’.”

Flanders said he found TV casting in particular was about hiring actors that were already the character.

“And since when has there ever been a screechy, queeny Australian character on TV?” he said.

“I don’t even know if gay audiences would like that, they’d be all ‘This is a horrible step back!’”

Flanders will be joined by accompanist Dave Barclay for the show, tackling a diverse range of showtunes and pop hits with his trademark bite.

“It’s got Madonna, some Carpenters, some country, Bonnie Tyler and even The Wizard of Oz‘s Optimistic Voices which, as you can imagine, in a show called Negative Energy Inc gets turned on its head.

INFO: Negative Energy Inc is at Theatre Works St Kilda Jan 15-Feb 5; Tix: www.midsumma.org.au

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