Bette Bourne

Born Peter Bourne in Hackney, east London,[5] he made his stage debut at the age of four as one of the members of Madame Behenna and her Dancing Children. Aged 16 his father secured him an apprenticeship as a printmaker, which lasted only three months. Encouraged to take part in amateur dramatics by his mother, he chose a career in the theatre, working backstage at the Garrick Theatre, London.

His brother is actor and singer Mike Berry.

Bette Bourne (left) with other original GLF activists at a 40th anniversary celebration in the LSE.

He studied drama at Central School of Speech and Drama in London and went on to act on stage and on television throughout the 1960s. He appeared in TV series such as The Avengers and The Prisoner, and in 1969, he appeared alongside Sir Ian McKellen in a touring double bill of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and Shakespeare's Richard II.[5] In the 1970s, he put his acting career on hold to become an activist with the Gay Liberation Front, becoming part of a gay commune in Notting Hill, London.[6] It was during this period that he started wearing drag and changed his name to "Bette".

In 1976, he joined the New York-based gay cabaret group, the Hot Peaches, performing with them in Europe, culminating in a show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.[5] When this group went back to New York, Bourne formed his own troupe, Bloolips. Featuring songs such as Let's Scream Our Tits Off, the shows were mostly written by playwright John Taylor with titles like Lust in Space and The Ugly Duckling. He toured the UK and the rest of Europe throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, winning an Obie Award (Off Broadway Theater Award) for the New York production of Lust in Space.

In 1995, Bourne won a Manchester Evening News award for his performance as Lady Bracknell in the English Touring Theatre production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

In 1996, he appeared in Neil Bartlett and Nick Bloomfield's production of Sarasine at the Lyric Hammersmith. He worked with Bartlett again at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2003, performing in a production of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre.[7]

In 1999, Bourne played his friend, Quentin Crisp, in Tim Fountain's play, Resident Alien, at the Bush Theatre in London.[5] He also performed it on tour around the world, including New York and Sydney. Fountain wrote two more plays for Bourne: H-O-T-B-O-I, which was produced at Soho Theatre in 2004 (originally Deep Rimming in Poplar at its premiere at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow);[8] and Rock in 2008.[9]

Bourne was part of the Donmar Warehouse production of The Vortex in 2002, for which he won the Clarence Derwent Award.[10] In 2005, he appeared in Read My Hips at The Drill Hall in London, playing the gay 20th-century Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy living in Alexandria.[5]

For the Royal Shakespeare Company, he played Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at London's Novello Theatre in 2007, and at the Royal National Theatre he was in Improbable Theatre's stage adaptation of the film, Theatre of Blood, in 2005.[11]

In 2009, he talked about his life in A Life in Three Acts at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, a staged reading of transcripts of conversations with playwright Mark Ravenhill.[12] Bourne worked with Ravenhill previously on a short play, Ripper, playing Queen Victoria at the Union Theatre in London in 2007.[13]

In 2010, in London's Evening Standard newspaper writer and director Mark Ravenhill named Bette 'The Queen of London.'[14]

In 2014 Bourne featured in a documentary film about his life and work, It Goes with the Shoes, written and directed by Mark Ravenhill.[15]

• Unfinished Histories Archive – Bette Bourne[16]

• Unfinished Histories Archive – Recording the History of Alternative Theatre[17]

• Bourne, Bette; Ravenhill, Mark (16 April 2010). A Life in Three Acts. A&C Black. ISBN 9781408133439. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
• A short documentary about Bloolips, 1993