Clare Summerskill tells Planet London how being a lesbian has influenced her career“After studying history at university, and having such a great time in the drama society there, I applied for drama schools and ended up going to Drama Studio with my best friend and cabaret partner, Alice Arnold (who now reads the news for Radio 4).
Over the next few years I worked as an actress, performing in Rep, Community Theatre and in the West End but in between jobs I performed a lesbian cabaret act with Alice called, originally, “ALICE AND CLARE” (I was the Clare half) and that was when I got excited about writing lesbian material in the form of sketches and comedy songs for predominantly lesbian and gay audiences.
Many years later when Alice was mainly working at Broadcasting House, she told me one day that she no longer wanted to perform the act and so I was left thinking ‘How on earth can I carry this work on, not being part of a duo?’
Well, the answer was to quickly learn how to write and perform stand-up, which as I discovered was quite a different skill from acting in sketches with a comedy partner.
So I worked away at this new and somewhat enforced path in my career and then, when I felt I had got the gist of it, I created full length comedy shows and performed them in theatres, where, because of my theatrical experience I naturally felt more comfortable than in comedy clubs. Now my one woman comedy shows include all the aspects of my writing that I have honed along the way: stand up routines, comedy songs theatrical sketches and monologues.
Alongside my comedy work I have also, over the years, written several plays for theatre; some for other companies but many for my own theatre company, Artemis. Artemis is project funded and so every couple of years or so I’ll write and perform with other cast members in a play, usually based on interviews with a particular group of people about their own experiences around a certain issue.
I have, to date worked mainly with older people, (LGBT and straight) and with mental health service users. The plays I am probably most proud of are Gateway To Heaven (based on older LGBT people’s memories) and Hearing Voices (based on stories from patients’ experiences in psychiatric wards). Both of these shows toured around the country and were funded by The Arts Council.
With my theatre writing I am interested in showing lives and stories about people whose experiences are not always portrayed either in theatre or on TV or in the media. I’ve learnt over the years to accept that as long as I do this there will probably be a lack of mainstream interest in my work but the upside is that on my journey I have made so many friends and met with such kindness working in the non-commercial world that it inspires me to continue with what I call my ‘soul’ work.
With regard to my lesbian based shows I am proud to not only be gay but to have the opportunity to talk about lesbian and gay lifestyles, experiences, relationships and outlooks in my comedy work.
There are now, thankfully, several “out” lesbian comediennes working on the circuit and on TV but there is still a pressure on them from the straight world not to “go on about it” too much. That seems to be straight people’s greatest fear! That we are not only gay but that we might talk about it… a lot. Remember Ellen’s final sitcom episodes about her own experiences of coming out and her consequent exile from mainstream television for a few years until she tacitly agreed not to “go on about it” again too much?
But as some of you might know, I quite enjoy ‘going on about it’! I think that we, as lesbians do not have nearly enough programmes, stand-up routines, films, literature etc about our own life and loves and we have to watch straight people ‘going on’ about what they get up to all the time, to a point where we don’t even notice that we’re always watching straight stuff and ‘translating’ the feelings, emotions and experiences from theirs into our own.
So yes, much of my material is about being gay, and it’s taken from my own experience of the world, of my friends’ lives, of my exes. It’s ‘our’ story I hope that I’m portraying, dramatising, laughing at, and hopefully I’m making into a good night out with the audience recognising in my material themselves, their friends, and their own exes.
As lesbians we are still very much a minority in this society and like other minorities I believe that we should be able to celebrate and enjoy our difference.
I’ve recently completed the first leg of a tour of my latest one woman show, Well That Explains It. As well as containing comedy, songs and theatrical monologues it also covers a little of our own lesbian and gay history.
I felt that this had not been done before in a stage show even though there is now an increasing interest in our past and how we as LGBT folk have got where we are today. So I hope I have addressed this particular subject with the respect it deserves as well as with humour, accuracy and a certain warmth and fondness.
Next year I will be touring the show again to several more theatres around the country so look out for forthcoming tour dates on the events page of my website.
I am currently writing a book from edited interviews by fifty older LGBT people about their lives and loves which also explores how the Lesbian and Gay movement has advanced over the last seventy years. And in the next few months I will be recording my fourth album of songs, a mixture of comedy and ballads which will hopefully be out in 2012.
