Lashings of Ginger Beer Time’s Pirate Cabaret began with a promising stand-up set from Sally Outen, who jogged cheerily on stage clutching a battered paperback with impeccable absentmindedness. It wasn’t, of course, that she’d been waiting for show to begin and had only just remembered she was in it: the paperback turned out to be a copy of Duncton Wood , the key prop in a routine on the perils of leaving early-years sex education to the authors of books about anthropomorphised furry animals. Outen’s more political material took reached out to the audience for common experience of the absurd rather than beating them round the face with the savage ironies of polemic; whether talking about transphobia or snails, she was unfailingly witty, endearingly generous, and side-splittingly funny. Lashings of Ginger Beer Time bill themselves as a queer feminist burlesque collective. They’re sex-positive, body-positive, and progressive to their core; the Pirate’s Castle, where Pirate Cabaret was staged, happens to have gender-neutral toilet facilities – but the Lashers take their own signage with them everywhere they go. Lashings are a travelling utopia, making the world a less shaming, blaming, heteropatriarchally-determined place wherever they perform. But Pirate Cabaret wasn’t just a...

Reflections on an ignomious career in student radio. First published here: http://www.spokenwordldn.com/2012/04/16/the-spoken-word-me-anthony-adler/