HÄUS OF DONS

Pack your bum bags and spray on the Lynx Africa, ‘cause Steve Porters is in town, baby. The drag king persona of Daisy Doris May (of HÄUS OF DONS fame), Steve is your classic ladies’ man, iPod DJ, and self-taught feminist. Your typical multi-hyphenated, high-value male. Or is there something more lurking beneath the fake goatee?

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Having decamped from his mum’s house in Guildford, Steve has arrived in “Edders” to deliver a one-man seminar on the art of listening, learning and loving. His syllabus might be rudimentary, and his educational materials – blow-up dolls and dodgy pie charts – slightly suspect, but Steve more than makes up for it with his earnest commitment to helping his ‘single Pringles’ find love. Lessons in self-confidence and handling rejection sit alongside demonstrations of a more practical nature, like “being interesting” and tearing it up on the dance floor. Moreover, discussions around consent and mutual pleasure, while funny, are underscored as absolutely non-negotiable – so, yes, you may seductively place this Listerine strip on my tongue. After much back-and-forth, Steve and an audience member touch fingers on a third date, and the chemistry in the room is absolutely electric.

 

Drag has always been about the spectacle of gender: of pushing gender expression to its extremes, so as to laugh at it, have fun with it, liberate ourselves from its social control. Drag, therefore, can help us imagine new ways of being. For a show ostensibly about impressing the best version of yourself onto others, Steve Porters is also a tender character study of a more positive, progressive masculinity, in which men are allowed to be flawed works-in-progress. Steve may be a capital-L lad, but it’s also clear that underneath the gold chains and hair gel, there lies real vulnerability. Which – for all his chat about vibes and auras – How to Flirt proves is the real key to any successful connection, romantic or otherwise.