Wasteman was. a. riot.

And to think I nearly missed it? For some reason I’m terrible with Instagram direct messages. I seem to have a blind spot in even seeing them but thank goodness I finally found Joe Leather’s invitation to check out the show.

This morning I signed upto Threads so let’s see how that one goes…

Anyways, GM Fringe is one of my favourite festivals, with the best Manchester venues, so I didn’t need asking twice.

Hello The Kings Arms and the Kings Arms cats! (Yeah they forsook me this time and I had to do with taking a pic of a pic of them).

And hello Mr Leather and your glorious 60 minutes of storytelling, song and sassy asides!

A bin man swaps steel-toed boots for stilettos to chase his dream of becoming a drag queen…a love letter to hard-working Northerners and gender euphoria, based on writer Joe Leather’s real-life experiences working as a Refuse Loader through lockdown.

This one-man monologue as told to us, the audience aka us, his imagination, took us on a journey of one man’s bid to swap rubbish for rhinestones, garbage for glitz, waste for wigs (synthetic, mind; human hair even out of reach in his dreams), whilst in real life, judging his boyfriend’s mood by the food served up for dinner that night (if it’s a bacon butty, he’s in the good books – anything more contrived, there’s trouble at t’mill).

I could listen to Joe proclaim ‘Shakshuka’ in those desperate, disappointed and devasted tones forever and a day.

Knowing his fate was sealed in one gastronomic serving, further confirmation was delivered in a message that his boyfriend/landlord was away for a few weeks and wanted him out by the time he got back.

As one door closes, another one opens, and a drag dream was reborn. You see the boyfriend didn’t approve of drag and so all items belonging to a forgotten dream were hidden away in a box in the attic, annotated with ‘Hanukkah’ to evade investigation.

Now was his time. That and the discovery of the chance to take the crown in a drag pageant in Stoke.

Still, it’s not all synching and sequins (although, Joe writes and sings his own songs but I needed ‘synching’ to make the alliteration work so…). No, it’s not all synching and sequins as we’re taken back in time to where it all begin. A shared experience with a friend in his teens, Kieran, way back when. A voyage of discovery from both trying on Kieran’s sister Tonya’s dresses, to sharing a kiss, to later in life enjoying raucous drag nights out in the Village.

Until a vicious hate crime put Kieran in a coma and our Wasteman in shock and effectively in the drag closet, coming out only in internal flights of fancy.

Bitingly funny, Joe brings to us a whole host of characters and, indeed voices from both sides of the Irish Sea, as he bemoans the internal politics of life on the bins (the sheer injustice of losing out again to Round of the Month) and how a deep voice seemed to lead his grumpy co-workers into assuming he had an ‘er indoors back home, rather than an ‘im.

Hi-vis chic all the way, this man’s trash was definitely this woman’s treasure, and I can’t wait to get Leathered again.

This one’s for anyone who has a dream, a song in their heart and an ability to call their boyfriend’s catty mate a c*** by mistake.

If you want to see Wasteman, you can catch it at Edinburgh Fringe on Friday 4 August: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/wasteman

To discover more from the wonderful GM Fringe, head to https://www.greatermanchesterfringe.co.uk/