SEEING/NOT SEEING performance by Lee Campbell at POETRYLGBT, INCITE! and LONDON QUEER WRITERS

SEEING/NOT SEEING by Lee Campbell at POETRYLGBT (15/11/20), INCITE! (18/11/20) and LONDON QUEER WRITERS (26/11/20) 

INCITE COMMENTS 

‘So relatable, so cool.I love this - so theatrical!’

PM

‘How fabulous! SO creative and memorable. Oh, so, Edward’s the gay prince is he?’

BARNEY-ASHTON-BULLOCK

‘Really loved the football and double use of tackle’

SALLY RUSH

‘What a story Lee! Loved the performance and the way you weaved the narrative through. As a football fan I found your experience at the football match very relatable and fun!’

FORUM 

LONDON QUEER WRITERS COMMENTS

Audience comments:

'Wow, a full immersive experience' 

'Can so relate to George Michael' 

'Amazing, immersive' 

‘Awesome! Felt like I went on a journey!' 

'Seeping peeping, great ending echo' 

'Totally captivating'

This short spoken work performance charts teenage-hood; discovering one’s sexuality in private, away from one’s parents. As a teenager, you do not really know who you are. This performance  is a self-reflection - a ‘this is what it was like’ to come to terms with my homosexuality; of me finding somebody attractive (men) but not really knowing what I am. I speak my personal truth, my personal history of seeing and not seeing to confront the politics of seeing and underline how validating seeing can be but also the difficulty of not being seen. Whilst it can be understood as one person’s (my) narrative so too can it easily be read as lots of different voices layered to talk about wider levels of experience with various references to cultural context that (any)one can relate to: George Michael, late night tv, bad porn. Part of the performance includes reference to a dad and son (me and my dad) conversation exploring what one is seeing and what the other is seeing about the same action of men in football with one person viewing it one way and the other a different way. Here we travel back in time to 1996, to a football match between Chelsea and Aston Villa courtesy of a cassette recording played through a tape recorder made at the time of the match.

‘