LGBTQ+ comedians are still othered at straight nights – and they’re exhausted-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

LGBTQ+ comedians in 2024 are tired of straight nights (Picture: COMEDYBLOOMERS)

It’s tiring being the odd one out. It’s especially tiring when you have to be the odd one out on a comedy bill of straight people, and go on stage to talk about being the odd one out to a bunch of strangers, all the while trying to make them laugh.

You would have thought in 2024 being an LGBTQ+ comedian would be without its barriers. After all, the community has seen many trailblazers with the likes of Eddie Izzard, Julian Clary and Miriam Margolyes having flown the rainbow flag in the industry for decades now.

But you would be wrong. LGBTQ+ comedians still must climb over hurdles straight people can take in their stride, and it’s getting progressively – or regressively – worse.

For Pride month, Metro.co.uk has caught up with three LGBTQ+ comics trying to break the surface of the industry, who are still fighting battles every time they go to work. And they’re exhausted.

‘What’s your problem, drama queens?’ is an attitude comedian Kuan-wen Huang is tired of recognising.

Victoria groans when I ask her if she performs at straight comedy nights as well as LGBTQ+ ones. ‘Unfortunately, I have to do both,’ she tuts.

Lachlan Werner is a self-depreciating ventriloquist with a very silly act, but everyone wants him to be empowering. 

Victoria won LGBTQ+ New Comedian of the Year in 2022 (Picture:WWW.COMEDYBLOOMERS.COM)

‘We are still being appreciated like caged, zoo animals in a way,’ says Kuan-wen, explaining how often audiences want to see a particular version of him – either revolving around his race or gender preference.

They aren’t satisfied with his thoughts on random topics, as someone who is white and straight can, and often does, freely spout – without having to chase that homophobic, racist elephant out the room first.  

‘I want to celebrate myself, I don’t want to do the minority and gay sort of self torture porn,’ he says, referring to the harrowing coming out story genre.

‘That kind of show for a gay act carries more weight than a gay act just being a silly clown, and I think that’s very unfair,’ he says. 

‘There’s an expectation,’ agrees Lachlan, whose show is an alternative clown ventriloquist act, in which he pokes fun at himself and plays a more insecure, smaller version of his true self. 

‘I think that if you are queer your material right now has to be very empowering in some way, or you’re there to specifically talk about that aspect of yourself. There’s definitely a pressure to comment on it,’ he says. 

‘But if you’re doing something really stupid and playful, you almost want to just get straight to that and have the space to be allowed to play in the same way that straight men are able to: get on stage, be silly, and not have to talk so much about how they look and who they are,’ Lachlan adds.

‘I guess there’s that hurdle in the first place that you have to sort of get rid of any tension around you being different.’ 

Victoria is exhausted trying to fit into the mainstream, so she set up her own queer comedy night at The Divine in Stoke Newington. 

‘I think there are barriers for everyone in the comedy industry who is not a straight white man. It’s not just the LGBTQ+ community,’ she says.

She recalled one particularly memorable gig in well-to-do Barnes, in which she was the furthest away from being white and sixty in the room, creating an automatic tension.

‘Creating new spaces where you can fit in, to find a corner of the world where it’s a bit less uncomfortable than to go on fighting is best. I’m exhausted, I’m 37-years-old and I’m exhausted,’ she says.  

‘I don’t think it’s hard to create a space that just works, where people are respected, paid and where we all have a good time,’ she adds, explaining how there is always a man – ‘and it’s always a man’ – in the audience at straight nights who thinks they’re cleverer than her. 

Luckily, there are more spaces on the comedy circuit now like with the LGBTQ+ New Comedian of the Year award, which is taking place on June 11 at the Clapham Grand.

As the co-founder of Comedy Bloomers which runs the competition, Kuan-wen has attended it for years, and in this time he’s realised something worrying:LGBTQ+ talent is being repeatedly sanitised and dumbed down for mainstream audiences.

Kuan-wen Huang has noticed something worrying over years of hosting the competition (Picture:WWW.COMEDYBLOOMERS.COM)

Only in this queer space, where LGBTQ+ comics can get past all that surface-level stuff and to the point quicker, are they able to truly shine. 

‘When you come to the LGBTQ+ specific gig, and also this competition, you’re surrounded by your community, you feel that you’re not alone, you have the support – people get you, and the crowd can be so shrewd, and so spot on.

‘You can do something smarter, further, a bit more relatable, or something you feel passionate about,’ he says. 

Kuan-wen explained: ‘At this competition, when you are followed by all the otherLGBTQ+ acts, if you have nothing specific to you or an original point of view, or an interesting take, then you won’t stand out.

‘There’s a stereotype of how LGBTQ+ people only talk about being LGBTQ+, but actually no, society has progressed so much. You can just be a whimsical act, you can do observational comedy while being LGBTQ+. There’s such a sheer variety, I was shocked myself.’  

When Kuan-wen moved to the UK in 2000, he was always the only non-straight comic on the bill, as if it was a curse to have more. 

‘You feel like you’re not just being you, you’re representing the whole community, there’s so much on your shoulders,’ he says of those instances.

While it happens less now, there are still huge barriers LGBTQ+ comedians must climb over to get on the same playing field as a white, cis man. 

There’s also the growing the problem of some comedians and audiences turning on the trans community in recent months and years.

‘Some people believe that within the arena of comedy, everything can be said,’ says Kuan-wen, who admits his view on the matter is constantly shifting.

But one thing he is sure about is the importance of authenticity.

‘If something relates to you, then you have a say in it. And if you don’t, at least have a humble attitude,’ he says. ‘You can analyse as much as you want. But there will always be blind spots.’ 

‘A lot of comedians feel like they are the modern philosopher,’ Kuan-wen thinks. ‘I know you want no limit when it comes to your jokes, but you should also recognise that there can be a limit because of the gender, the cultural background, the position you’re born in.’  

Also: just because you’re accepting of one tribe within the LGBTQ+ community, it doesn’t mean you can alienate another. 

Lachlan is a ventriloquist and thinks it’d be easier to get the audience on side quicker if he was a straight man (Picture:WWW.COMEDYBLOOMERS.COM)

‘People tend to think, “Well, we have no problem with you guys. So you don’t have to fight. Not every day is a parade!” Straight comedian jokes like that…’ Kuan-wen tuts, adding: ‘Once after my set the MC – who I don’t know personally – he said to the audience, “Wow, that was the gayest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”’ 

While this comedian could justify this by claiming irony, Kuan-wen noted the use of the word ‘thing’ – and doesn’t buy it. It’s homophobia, albeit subtle and passive aggressive, but this ‘nasty undercurrent’ lingers still. 

‘Go back where you came from,’ is something Victoria, who is Argentinian, hears at straight nights, while in queer nights it’s easier to take the p*** out of the peculiarities of British culture. 

‘The behaviour of people on straight nights is worse,’ she says. ‘There is more risk of people getting totally hammered and heckling you.’ They are always men. Every. Time.

‘I don’t feel threatened, I feel more othered,’ she says.

Sometimes Lachlan thrives in the challenge of winning over a straight audience, taking to the stage as the one slightly anarchist, obscure, queer act on the bill. But other times it’s an uphill climb.

‘Occasionally you can spend a really large chunk of your act having to just win the audience and get them into the game that you’re trying to play,’ he says.

‘Sometimes it’s harder to do that as a queer person than if you’re straight, because being straight is almost the skill of being neutral. So it’s easier to start from that.’ 

‘It shouldn’t just be those straight white men that can do sketches and surreal comedy,’ Kuan-wen agrees.  

‘But anything that is the most diverse form will always be led by the straight white male Oxford, Cambridge, Cambridge Footlights alumni. And I think that’s fundamentally wrong.’  

Kuan-wen quotes Margaret Cho and Hannah Gatsby, who both make the same telling joke in their shows. 

‘Excuse me, I am lesbian,’ they say. ‘Me on a stage talking is the most lesbian thing I can do.’

Tickets for the LGBTQ+ New Comedian of the Year Awards final (June 11, Clapham Grand) can be booked here. For more information visit the Comedy Bloomers website.

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