Queer Diary Readings and School Disco come to Rich Mix with Beth Watson

Created by Beth Watson, Queer Diary comes to Rich Mix on May 31st for a special edition including a post reading School Disco themed after party. The only live teenage diary reading evening for the Queer community, LGBTQIA+ adults are invited to read extracts from their teenage diaries to a live audience, in the spirit of celebration, solidarity and silliness. Following the diary readings, audiences are encouraged to stay for a School Disco themed afterparty, inviting LGBTQIA+ people to wear what they want and dance with whoever they want with a DJ taking song requests and dedications, in a chance to do-over their school disco as adults.

In June Beth will also be performing Hasbian at Omnibus 96 Festival, a comedy about coming out as a lesbian, only to discover that boys are also appealing. Using Beth’s real teenage diaries, music, and animated projections of teen-movie actors from the noughties the show tells the story of growing up queer in Brighton under Section 28. We caught up with Beth about the shows.

Can you tell us a bit about Queer Diary?

Queer Diary is an open-mic style event where LGBTQIA+ adults read out their real teenage diaries on stage - or their teenage poetry, fan-fiction, homework assignments, scrapbooks. Whatever they wrote when they were younger!

Queer Diary started off as a zoom event during lockdown, then I began hosting in-person events in 2021. Since 2022 we've had at least one open mic event a month - each with a different group of wonderful queer folks stepping up to the mic to share true tales from their coming-of-age era. Queer Diary at Rich Mix on May 31 will be our biggest show yet - it feels appropriate to throw a massive school disco party afterwards to celebrate!

I think the popularity of the night stems from putting a queer twist on something that feels familiar. There are a few teenage diary-reading comedy nights out there, and a podcast or 2 - but this one's different, as it's specifically for LGBTQIA+ folks. For a community of people who often don't have the easiest time as teens, its very healing to get together and chuckle at (with!) our younger-selves. Queer Diary is also rare in providing a night out that's inclusive of all identities, and it's intergenerational - we've had readers whose ages range between 20-60+ - it's incredible to hear two people reading stuff written 40 years apart, both sharing similar sentiments about what it feels like to be turning 15 and worrying that you might not fit in. 

What do you hope people take away from the experience?

Everyone has a different experience at Queer Diary - I’ve heard audience members say hearing about real queer teenage experiences on stage helps them feel they weren't as weird as they thought they were (or that we’re all as weird as each other!). Readers often say they feel closer to their younger-self after reading their diaries on stage. I know people have made new friends by bonding over their niche teenage fandoms, which makes me so happy.

Our main goal, ultimately, is for everyone to have a laugh for a couple of hours!

What is one of the wildest things you’ve heard at a Queer Diary event?

Not wild as in shocking - but made me cackle hysterically: Someone brought a song they'd written as a teenager, about Twilight, to the tune of that 00s track ‘I wish I was a punk rocker…’. They changed it to ‘I wish I was a vampire…’ and delivered it as a very deadpan dramatic reading. I’m not even a Twilight fan (I’m Buffy generation, when it comes to vampires) - but it was absolutely hilarious. I had tears rolling down my face. 

I often have to work hard to compose myself hosting Queer Diary - it’s easy to get so caught up listening to everyone’s teenage antics, I'm in danger of laughing so hard I forget where I am!

How has it been writing and creating your own project Hasbian?

Hasbian is a comedy show based on my teenage diaries - so you get some of the bits I share when hosting Queer Diary - plus all the juicy backstories about growing up queer in Brighton in the 00s (think Sugar Rush meets Skins, with a little Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging thrown in). Early in the writing process I had an opportunity to test a bit of the script at Omnibus Theatre’s brilliant Engine Room scratch night. I'm a huge fan of Omnibus, so it's incredibly exciting to be bringing Hasbian to 96 Festival in June!

I'm not gonna lie, between the first draft of Hasbian and now, it's been quite a rollercoaster getting the show on stage. There’s been so much joy, but also some hurdles - mainly financial: Arts funding is in crisis, and we could ever afford to bring the show to life without a budget, so we spent most of 2023 writing funding applications before finally landing some Arts Council support for our work this Summer.

There have also been big societal changes in recent years - as an all-LGBTQIA+ team, transphobia is never far from our consciousness. Hasbian is a comedy, so the tone is lighthearted, and the aim is for queer people to have a good time laughing at my teenage antics, but its impossible to ignore parallels with the rise in 80s homophobia that led to Section 28 in the 90s-00s (when I was growing up), and today's rising culture of transphobia in the UK.

What has been the most fun part of the rehearsal process for Hasbian so far?

Seeing the show’s projections come to life (designed by Edalia Day) has been a dream come true. When I first started reading my diaries I had this silly idea to protect the identities of all my teenage friends (and crushes) by naming them after the iconic actors I'd cast to play them in a 00s teen movie of my life. I told Edalia about all the American high school movies I was obsessed with (and aspired to) as a teen, and she took this idea and ran with it - making amazing animations inspired by my old scrapbooks full of clippings with celebs like Lindsay Lohan, Natasha Lyonne, Ashton Kutcher appearing as my pals.

I've also had the best nostalgia-trip putting together the Hasbian show playlist - it's a mix of camp classics, y2k pop bangers, and angsty indie anthems, charting the emotional rollercoaster (and wildly erratic taste) of being a teenager in the 00s.

Pick one modern and one y2k pop song that encapsulates Hasbian.

I hate to say it - because of the problematic backstory, but All The Things She Said was HUGE during the era when Hasbian is set. As a 15-year-old, I watched the music video of those girls snogging in the rain in their school uniform and thought “that's us!”

A more modern song would probably be The Way You Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae - I'd love to take the spirit of that song back in time, to let my teenage self know that there is power in tenderness, and sensuality and gender don't have to be binary. 

Queer Diary + School Disco is at Rich Mix on 31st May. More information and tickets here.

Hasbian, along with more Queer Diary events, will be part of Omnibus 96 Festival running throughout June and July. More information and tickets here.