Rich Mix Certain Blacks Harlem Festival: Fancy Chance Flight of Fancy
Fancy Chance Flights of Fancy. Picture: Sin Bozkurt - Credit: Archant
Veronica Thompson’s show, Fancy Chance Flight of Fancy, is showing on September 10 at 5pm
Fancy Chance Flight of Fancy - Credit: Archant
Veronica Thompson, stage name Fancy Chance, has just returned, exhausted from Edinburgh Fringe.
And it’s no surprise she’s tired.
“It was an intense show and I was hanging by my hair the whole time,” she says. “That’s just what you do when you’re in your early forties!”
She has been performing in variety and group shows since she first started burlesque as part of her friend Indigo Blue’s queer burlesque troop.
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“Where she was coming from was more satire and humour than it was glamour, and neo-burlesque was new so we were kind of making it up as we were going along and her starting that troop was a reaction to the vintage aspect of burlesque which sometimes includes sexist, homophobic jokes.”
She has channelled a variety of characters from Prince to Kim Jong Il, but now brings a personal touch with her debut solo show.
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Fancy Chance Flight of Fancy at Rich Mix this weekend takes the audience on a journey through her life.
“The premise is that you’re on a flight that lands in Seattle, somewhere in Korea and then ends up in London. There’s in-flight entertainment and introductions into the indigenous culture that you’re about to land in and then when you get there, I tell anecdotes about my experience and how I ended up in each of these places.”
Veronica was born in Korea but orphaned and adopted by American parents at the age of 11 months old.
“I talk about North Korea a bit because I think the circumstances of my adoption are very much tied to a poor country who went through a civil war. So Korea both South and North come into it,” she says, before adding: “It’s insane, it’s totally insane!
“I didn’t want my show to be so timely; North Korea is in the news a lot, I have an immigration officer that’s just so Brexit and then Trump got elected and I was like, what the hell is happening?!”
Her show combines comedy with original songs and outrageous films, and has been directed by her collaborator, Nathan Evans.
“There’s a short film in my show which is A Day in the Life of a Despot’s Wife and it’s me pretending to be Kim Jong Un’s wife and what she does day to day,” she says, laughing.”
Fancy Chance Flight of Fancy is showing as part of Rich Mix’s Certain Blacks Harlem Festival on September 10 at 5pm.
Richmix.org.uk
