Grayson Perry is no slouch at addressing audiences. As well as being one of the UK’s best-known artists, he’s a Bafta-winning TV presenter and delivered the prestigious BBC Reith Lectures to a live audience. He achieved pretty much all of the above in full makeup and a series of outrageously extravagant frocks. But the showman-artist declared the Sunday night performance of his new live show Typical Man in a Dress at Brasserie Zédel on 16 October to a small invited audience of family and friends—including his daughter Florence and yours truly—to be “the most terrifying I have ever done”.
He needn’t have worried. His ensuing investigation of masculinity and attempts to question and change embedded notions of manhood—or, as he put it, to introduce “a bit of self-awareness to get the psychological bowel movement going”—went down a treat. The dresses were fab, too. Granted, the audience conformed to a very particular demographic. Of the males present, two were psychotherapists and others included such shining examples of metrosexuality as natty cultural critic Ekow Eshun and the Observer food critic Jay Rayner (who in the Twitter-questionnaire defined masculinity as “being handed the unopened jam jar to get the lid off).
Everyone agreed that Perry managed to make some serious points (never easy when you’re trying to be funny) while also being highly entertaining. Your correspondent (who, in collaboration with her 21-year-old daughter defined masculinity as “rigidity—in all respects”) especially enjoyed his description of camouflage fabric as “man pink” and multiple-dialled, gizmo-heavy wristwatches as “man frills”.
The fully blown Man in Dress live show kicks off in Bristol on 2 November—where it has already sold out. It’s at the London Palladium the following night before going on to Salford, Worthing and Sheffield. The show accompanies the publication of his new book The Descent of Man, which features the doleful artist on the cover, looking very uncomfortable in a mannish suit and tie.
It will be interesting to see how the nation receives the Perry manifesto for future manhood. “Men, sit down for your rights!” he proclaims, listing them as the right to be vulnerable, weak, wrong, intuitive, not to know, uncertain, flexible and not ashamed of any of the above. Donald Trump, take note…