Joseph Cotgrave and Ross Fleming In Conversation
Ross Fleming and Joseph Cotgrave in Conversation. Facilitated by Saoirse Amira Anis.
JC: The work showing at Life After Love is titled Fleming’s Lemon’s, can you expand on the title and its meaning?
RF: Yeah, sure! I wanted to create a brand, and it started from the most stupid thing- I had a little teeny picture of a lemonade stand in a sketchbook, like a wee child would make in America, and there was a big sign across it that said Fleming’s Lemons. It was just supposed to be a really daft idea, and the further I went on with I realised it could be much bigger than just a little sculpture, but it could be a full exhibition. So yeah, it started out as just a stupid little drawing in a sketchbook and then it spiralled into a bigger thing. Now, the fantasy is that it’s a brand and it can do something for a community and for a wider audience. I also wanted to open it up to creating a heritage moment by portraying the brand as a narrative. So, by using the name Fleming’s Lemons, you’re peddling that notion that it’s all about the brand identity. But apart from that it was just a weird autobiographical thing – it rhymed, so I thought let’s do it. So, it was a bit serious and also complete stupidity.
JC: Cool.
RF: On the topic of autobiographical, how important do you think it is to use lived experiences in your art? Do you think it’s always appropriate or only for a particular type of artist?
J: So, I always use like my experiences with being HIV positive and I think that’s really important because it allows the audience to see something which is real. That way, they can engage with the work on some level, and not see the idea of HIV as something big and scary. I guess that the aim in that is for the audience to walk away and hopefully have learned something, and maybe shift that stigma around HIV. And yeah, I guess it like puts the artist in a position of making art totally accessible across the board. And I think by bringing in personal experiences it makes the audience reflect on their own experience as well, things like shared stigma.
R: On that – when I’m making work, I always want to have it totally accessible, but also only a few people will actually get it. Do you think that’s something that you also try and do?
J: I think all the work is accessible, especially this piece Letting Go. Even though it is representative of gay clubs, HIV transmission and cruising culture – everyone’s been in a club where the floors sticky and stinks of vodka-red bull so they can relate to it somehow. It allows people to find a way in to that awkward conversation and open up that narrative about HIV.
R: I love that
J: This piece in particular brings all of that. It allows people to get over that first hurdle of being able to talk about something that is quite uncomfortable at times to talk about, especially when people don’t have that much knowledge about this.
R: I really enjoy artwork that actually does that – using the experience that person/artist/body has actually lived through, then it is honest, then it is true. It’s not just a projection of someone else’s dreams, you actually make something new rather than reproduce art that you’ve seen before.
J: I think it’s so important that as artists we can do that and, also reflect on what’s happening even in the political climate. I think as artists we have a platform that people actually take notice of when we’re showing in an exhibition or in a public space – and most of the work we’re doing is in a public domain anyway – so I think we should be held responsible for these things.
R: I mean that’s one of the reasons why I made this Fleming's Lemons. It was a chance for me to actually go in and be the artist that I’m meant to be – a truth-maker, and a truth-sayer – and really go in and shout about some really important issues in my past. I’ve always done what other people have asked of me [while making art]. I was thinking about it there the other night – this is one of the first projects that I’ve done where it’s completely my own narrative and I specifically wanted to shout about this one subject, without loads of bells and whistles of different things or different peoples’ agendas.
J: I feel the same about Letting Go. I lost my sister just over a year and a half ago – she died by suicide – and it just completely changed my life, and my perspective on life and I think for the first time ever I just stopped making art for like a year. It was a really tough time but it made me reconsider everything, and I think that vulnerability comes out in the work as well. That’s the point of the title – Letting Go – that was the first time that I was back working and actually producing work. It felt like a celebration of my older self – almost like I was having this weird ceremony for all the bad things that I used to do and not taking them into the future.
R: You catharsed it all out, and I love that art can do that for particular people – by making that thing, you’ve offloaded, you’ve put it out there and now you don’t need to think about it because it’s done.
J: Yeah definitely, and I think that art as therapy is super important as well. I never really used to think that me producing work about HIV and stuff was therapeutic but I guess it's all come together – along with the BBC Three videos that I did – in a way that's allowed me to tackle the really shit stuff in my life.
R: I’m so sorry to hear about all that kind of pain that you’ve went through in the past few years.
J: I think that the whole idea of loss in my work is definitely apparent as well – both being diagnosed and losing my sister. Being diagnosed put me in a position where I could deal with losing someone so close to me because I felt like when I was diagnosed, I lost myself. So, it is definitely like it’s made me – yeah I don’t know – how – yeah... It’s really heavy to talk about it but I think it’s important that these experiences are talked about because at some point in our lives, we will all go through loss.
R: The fact is that you are using it. Can I ask – after your diagnosis, when you first found out, did you make art about it straight away or did you have a stagnant moment where you were just like “I need to sit on this”?
J: Yeah, I would say it was like a year and a half. I was diagnosed when in second year of university and I didn’t produce any work about HIV or anything until I got onto my masters and then I started being able to contextualise and think about why I was making that work, why it was important.
R: Hugely important for you to do that.
J: Yeah, definitely and it was quite scary but it’s made me think of HIV as not a thing anymore.
R: Yeah exactly. There was a documentary made about Darrell Rowe last year which came out when I had developed the work [Fleming’s Lemons] pretty much, and I had to reanalyse everything and make it all again so that was really quite a big thing for this project. When the documentary came out, I couldn’t watch it for like two months – so I would watch like five-minute segments of it every week because it would just – it cut me up, it got me too fainty – I got fainty when I watched it. I was like I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this. But I’m glad that I did it and had used the experience that I went through with him and yeah, it’s wonderful that I can now – like you say – it’s nothing to you and nor should it be, because I feel the same way. You probably don’t know anything about how my experience was. Basically, six years ago – maybe seven years ago – he was in Edinburgh, prior to all of it happening [his arrest for deliberately infecting people with HIV], but me and him had sex a few times when I was living in Edinburgh. This was just prior to him catching it, but I thought this is a weird guy – there's something off about him, and then years after that’s when there was the witch-hunt – well not witch-hunt but kind-of-hunt for him – cos he ran away –
J: How do you feel about the headlines about Darrell Rowe?
R: Have you seen some of the headlines?
J: Yeah.
R: Ehm, I've gone through a whole 360 with the idea of Darrell. From totally looking at him as the predator, and then seeing all of the whole process that he’s gone through, at one point I was totally on his side. I was totally like oh my god we’ve all made him feel this way – and it wasn’t just about the documentary as I was actually going against the documentary because at the end, it almost did him a disservice and said that he was a sociopath. I think he was just a hurt person who didn’t know how to process, and if we’d caught it sooner, if he’d asked for help sooner, he wouldn’t have done the thing that he’s done.
J: Do you think – something that I get my back up quite a lot about is the government having done such a disservice to anyone with HIV because there’s no informative campaigns, even at the most basic level of sexual education in schools. If I were taught about HIV and sexual health on a basic level, I know I would never have caught HIV – well I can’t say never but like, when I was first diagnosed it was so traumatic because I didn’t know anything about what was going to happen, I just thought I was going to die.
R: So you went into it completely blind, not knowing anything.
J: Yeah, because I was only 19 and I think it happens to a lot of people because the stigma hasn’t shifted since the 80s. The science has but the stigma hasn’t, and like I said before, if people could get some sort of informative knowledge from my work then that saves someone going through the experience I had. But yeah, with Darrell and stuff some of the newspapers are so stigmatising. im There was an article the other day – or a few months ago – and it was about how someone spat at a policeman and it said HIV positive person spits, and it can’t even be caught like that.
R: Yeah, even the most rudimentary false facts are still getting peddled.
J: I think the problem there is probably that 80% of the public won’t have had experience of HIV or know anyone who has because it’s so hard to talk about, so people will read those headlines and think oh that must be true. It’s so wrong isn’t it?
R: Well yeah, you’re absolutely right about people not wanting to talk about it even if they do have it. When Grindr first gave you the options to disclose your status, I thought that’s really personal and that’s something you should be talking about once you’re in a relationship and I’ve done that 360 where I'm now like actually no that’s really good, but then the people who are positive, on PEP [post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV] will also get stigmatised and probably filtered out.
J: Yeah, well I’m obviously ‘positive undetectable on ARVs [anti-retro viral medication]’ but it puts me in a vulnerable position for other users on those apps to take advantage or say horrible stuff.
R: Oh yeah, absolutely.
J: Like, Jesus Christ just go and get educated, seriously! If you’re going to be on this forum and have an opinion to judge people on their status then do the research. That’s all I can say now because that pisses me off! Sorry to swear but it does because it’s constant; it’s a constant battle.
R: Are you on Grindr?
J: Yeah – and other dating apps, and I still get it now. I was in a four-year relationship so I didn’t have it but it’s mad coming out of that relationship and it’s still there
R: People are still arseholes about it.
J: In those four years, we only recently have had full access to PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV].
R: Oh yeah, is it this month that it came out in England? Wonderful!
J: Yeah, it’s been fully rolled out which is great, but still, it’s like why do people still have these opinions?
R: Well, now that PrEP is out and it’s readily available across the UK, I think there will be more conversation about it, because before PrEP came to Scotland it was a new thing for me, I had maybe seen it in the sex clinic but I had never really switched on to what it was. If Scotland hadn’t been progressive and put it out on the NHS, I wouldn’t have known and I still would’ve been that ignorant person.
J: Yeah totally and I think just for people reading this, an easy way to look at it is PrEP is for ‘pre-having-sex' – so it’s like the contraceptive pill in a way. And PEP is ‘post-having-sex', so that’s like the morning after pill. And also, I mentioned ARVs earlier, and that’s anti retro viral therapy which is one pill that I take a day which makes me undetectable which means that I can't transmit HIV even without a condom. And you’ll be able to see them throughout the show – there’s several little casts about the room of the pill that I take.
R: When PrEP came out, the doctor who was asking me if I was interested in it, was telling me about it and I was like woah that’s incredible and she was like I know it’s amazing isn’t it! She was really excited by it, saying “it’s like witchcraft! It’s magic isn’t it?!” So that enthusiasm was really nice.
J: Yeah definitely and it’s crazy that PrEP was [only approved] in 2012 and Dallas Buyers Club [the film] is like the old version of the Prepster documendary. It’s crazy that the drug was out for so long, but the drug company Gilead are the devil so they just held the patent and wouldn’t give it to anyone until the price had risen and risen and so new transmissions could’ve been prevented.
R: That’s what got me. I was watching a TED talk and the guy who was doing it was explaining exactly that and he was saying that it’s crap. It’s actually ridiculous that we’ve had this medication for so long and it’s not been used correctly and it’s just a marketing ploy.
J: Saying that – I think Gilead’s held one of the vaccines for COVID-19 and they are doing the same thing. I just do not understand how people are so centred around money and it’s those old straight white men who are running these companies and literally don’t care about anything other than themselves.
R: And that’s what you talk about in exhibition – about the 1% and the importance of being political.
J: Yeah, and it’s true. It’s happening now. I mean look at how fucked up Boris Johnson’s made the whole of the UK. He literally doesn’t care about anyone other than the top 1% which includes him.
R: Well, yeah. Luckily we’ve got a woman in our corner shouting and screaming for us, saying bugger off, Boris!
J: Yeah, it is. And even a lot of our work is centred around sexual health and stuff but, since I’ve been diagnosed, there’s been so many cuts to those services across the UK. I mean, I used to get my medication delivered to my door which made it super easy because I would never ever get to the end of my six-month stock that I have in my house and be like shit I need to go and get my medication now, because if I miss one its –
R: Well yeah, it’s life or death.
J: Yeah. And all of that stopped.
R: So how does it get to you?
J: I have to go to the hospital and collect them which is terrible when you think about. I’m able-bodied but other people with disabilities or who don’t have access to travel, how are they getting theirs? It’s terrible really, and just like sexual health and also mental health services have been cut severely in the UK and that’s just because Boris Johnson
R: Well I think it's so much more than just Boris Johnson. He’s the dangler. He’s the person they dangle to say these things but there’s so many other people behind him that you don’t hear about that are making these decisions. Not to stick up for Boris – because I’m not – but...
J: Good.
R: But he’s just a cog in a system that we need to break down, and we need to say enough is enough and, no, we’re not doing anymore. We are not doing anymore.
J: I think artists can be held accountable for breaking that system as well.
R: Yup, absolutely.
J: Inclusive practice is so important these days that we aren’t just focussing on ourselves. I think that can be a start to breaking down that system, but I’m not too sure how... I say all this stuff but I don’t have all the answers. I think it’s something we can consider.
R: Well that goes back to my question of being autobiographical. Both of our projects have similar elements to them – personal experiences on the surface but with another layer. It’s not just about our personal experience, but it’s also about the audience coming and seeing this, and educating themselves through this thing that’s happened to us.
J: Yeah definitely. Something that I was interested in ross is the idea of mythology. I’ve been playing a Greek game – Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – and it’s made me really interested in mythology so I just wondered, what did you mean when you say mythology?
R: *laughs* See you just want a story, don’t you?! Eh where did you read that? – mythology –
S: You wrote it on your website...*laughs*
R: Oh yeah, okay. That’s more of generalised term that I'm always using a piece of information. So, I know that you're wanting a Greek fable but I'm talking about mythology as something which is actually real, and treating history as mythology because the thing is, we don’t know if it’s real. What we did know about Gaëtan Dugas is when all that was happening [being dubbed HIV Patient Zero], he said to the nurses “no I don’t care. I’ve got the virus now so fuck yous all. You can all get it too.” And this makes a kind of parallel between him and Darrell Rowe. They were having the same kind of moment forty years apart (is it forty years, is that maths correct?), so it's like we keep on repeating the same mistakes.
J: Yeah. At the end of the day, we don’t know – we’re just being told about this history by someone who’s probably a heteronormative white male. Do you think as artists we should be rethinking and rewriting that history?
R: Absolutely, and really going back and actually analysing. Like: Was Queen Elizabeth actually a man in drag? Obviously, I'm talking absolute nonsense when referring to that but I just mean going right back and actually questioning those things of that don’t add up and asking to see it again. Was Shakespeare actually Shakespeare or was he just the actor? God, I'm really going for it, *laughs* but you know what I mean. With Gaëtan there was a certain narrative that he had about his life, even to the point where the media created a witch-hunt for him by saying that he was Patient Zero when actually he was Patient O, for ‘out-of-California'. But they saw it as a zero and they targeted him. It’s horrendous and I'm assuming that we will continue having that same mentality. Somebody will find out who brought COVID-19 to Britain. It was actually already in the papers who brought it to Scotland. It was a little boy from a family that were on a ski holiday. I don't know what the outcome of that family's story was but the papers kind of put it on the table that they were patient zero.
J: That ties in with this idea of stigma because there's just so much of it across the board, really. Like, at the end of the day it’s a virus. We’re all human – why do we need to know where it came from? It really gets me mad because it’s a virus *laughs* at the end of the day. We knew what was going to happen. We knew from the flu pandemic back in 1919.
R: Going back to what you were saying about this stigma and fetishisation, there was actually a thing called Bareback Berlin – god it might have been ten years ago it happened. I saw a documentary about people that were going and basically taking the power back for themselves. They were searching out people who were HIV positive. I think ten years ago, people would only have been detectable, there wasn’t such a thing as undetectable – so they were taking the power back and wanted to become HIV positive on purpose because they thought well if I do that, I’ll no longer be living with the fear of catching it.
J: When I was diagnosed, that was something that was quite apparent – that people were just wanting to catch it, and it’s just terrible that we, as gay men and in the community, have felt like that was the only option.
R: But that was it – I think that was the whole point of the Bareback Berlin – that it was their option, their choice.
J: It’s almost like we’ve come so far in fighting for rights and stuff and we have them, but I don’t think equality exists within the gay community. I think people are put on different levels depending on the colour of their skin, the shape of their body, their HIV status, where they're from; and as a community, it’s become so fractured. I think Grindr is partly to blame for that because it makes people the worst form of themselves. People might take it at face value but, at the end of the day, it’s a digital platform where you can be anyone that you want to be.
R: I think that Grindr needs to link up with Facebook immediately because there is no accountability in Grindr right now. You can make a fake account and be anybody you want to be. For me personally I hate anonymous anything – I literally want to know your middle name, I want to know where you live, I want to know all that stuff. I don’t want to fuck you unless I know all these different things. I don’t need to know your name but I need to know those things! *raucous laughter from all*
J: Yeah, and that’s what comes up in my work is the idea of it being a platform which allows fetishisation of something that shouldn’t be fetishised. Being HIV positive doesn’t make you different from anyone else.
R: It doesn’t but, that fetishisation exists. Have you had experiences like that, and have you actually found out anything more about it?
J: Yeah I’ve had loads of experiences like that actually, and I just always say to them it’s a chronic illness. People need glasses, people need hearing aids, people need inhalers. It’s exactly the same as that. It doesn’t make me any different. I take one pill a day, other people take vitamins every day. I do just think that, as an artist, I have to take some responsibility to try and move that conversation on because it’s just not shifted – it doesn’t seem to want to shift even though it is a chronic illness now people still have opinions.
R: Speaking of art, one of the questions I want to ask is how do you deal with stress while making art?
J: That is... I don’t know. I probably just get really stressed and freak out. *laughs*
R: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...*laughs*
J: I probably take on too much, leave it until the last minute and then be like SHIIIIIIIT.
R: I think that most artists of a certain age probably do that...where you probably don’t look at it as ‘Right this is a job.’ I’m saying that like I’m forty years old and been in the business for ages! I’m not; I’m the exact same. I usually talk a big game then freak out like shit I’m not prepared. Then I try and really analyse and think it all through, and really think methodically about the timescale I can make everything in, and then work until the last minute.
J: Yeah, I think the way I make is quite last minute as well because I tend to make loads of different bits of work and put them all together. It’s almost like there’s a motif across the work, and then they come together very last minute on the install.
R: Do you geek out about process?
J: Ehm, no not really. I think I just do whatever comes natural to me.
R: So it's really like: glue this thing to this thing and make it work? You’re not thinking what's the best way of attaching these?
J: Oh yeah...no.
R: Well I'm the opposite. I analyse: right okay I've got 5 different options for how can I put this picture on the wall.
J: Oh no, I’ll just get it up with some blu-tac or something.
S: Me too! *laughs*
R: I’m not proud of both of yous for admitting that... I'm a bit of a perfectionist and it gets to a point where I have over-thought it, micromanaged and then I’m freaking out because I just don’t know which option’s the best. So, it's a total buyers-regret of what if I do that one but then the other one was better...
J: I can be quite playful with making the work and just experimenting, and seeing what happens.
R: Do you think you ever bring humour into your work?
J: Yeah definitely. Throughout the soundtrack in this piece there's weird sexual noises and stuff which are quite funny to listen to. I think humour’s quite important because it makes people feel more comfortable when talking about something which is quite awkward. What about you?
R: I'm so glad you actually mentioned your soundtrack because that is exactly what I was meaning by humour. Yeah, I think there's always an element of it in my work. Like I said, with Fleming’s Lemons, I wanted it to sound stupid as fuck. I wanted it to sound so ridiculous but it still works. There’s a familiarity to it. I wanted to make this humorous product; I wanted to make it funny; I wanted to make it accessible; I wanted to make it about something real. So, there’s always a lynchpin or a stepping stone between all these different elements. That’s how I structure my work; I’ve got a kind of cue card: Does it have humour? Tick. does it have this? Tick. Does it have that? Tick. Do you have a structure for how you make things?
J: I used to, but now it's always centred around something that I might've been through so I guess it depends what I'm going through in my personal life at the time, and how I can work through that by making the work. How does your work usually come about?
R: I’ve got a few things I want my work to have, and one of my basic ones is fantasy and reality. This is mainly for me making the work as if it doesn’t have this at the end then it's not that important to me. I want to have my French-vanilla-fantasy but it also needs to have elements of reality in there, so it’s unclear where it lies as it teeters between the two. It’s also a lot about time travel. So, how I see time travel is: I’m taking that piece of information from that time, and that time, and that time, and forming it as a future-projection, or a present-projection or as a piece of work from the past but we just get to see it right now. Anyway, Joe, you’re about to become a teacher, do you think you’ll continue making exhibition art afterwards?
J: Yeah, definitely!
R: Good! I’m so glad to hear that!
J: With COVID-19, it became apparent that it's not feasible anymore to live as a freelancer, so teaching seemed like a good qualification to get. I’ve done teaching before, but on a freelance basis in universities. This is a way of me getting a structured job that is maybe three days a week, and then for the rest of the week I can make art. Yeah, I don’t know whether I should say this but teaching is secondary...
R: You can absolutely say that! I think most artists who teach think that’s it’s a secondary thing. It’s a thing that pays the bills and that’s all it should be. It seems that older artists in art schools always make it quite obvious that they don’t really care whereas younger teachers have still got the enthusiasm and the drive to actually teach you, and also teach you the ways of the art-world.
J: And I think that’s hopefully something that I can bring; a bit more relevant experience of being an artist, and what it means to be an artist now.
R: Saoirse, do you have any questions?
SAA: I have so many questions! I also have so many things that I just want to say. I wanted to chime in at so many points during that conversation!
R: Oh, you should’ve!
SAA: No, I did consider it but I think that it worked really well as a free conversation just between the two of you. But I want to mention how exciting it is that there’s so many parallels between your work. I find it really interesting the way both of you explore a fantastical reality, and teeter on this line between past, present and future, but you both approach it in very different ways. Your aesthetic, Ross is almost clinical –
R: It was meant to actually look like a pop-up medical clinic you might find in crisis areas – somewhere that’s transient and its very immediate.
S: Whereas yours, Joe, is obviously a nightclub aesthetic. It’s dark and dingy, and it stinks. So many of your respective thought processes are really similar, but the way that you’ve actually made the work is so vastly different, and the aesthetics are so different .
J: Yeah, I think it’ll be interesting to see them side by side because I think there'll be even more parallels between them.
S: Absolutely! I was also interested in what you were saying about history repeating itself, and we can see it in so many aspects of politics and society. What role do yous think artists can play in breaking this cycle?
J: I think there's a misconception that the curators and the gallerists hold the power because of the funding but I think actually artists bring us together to share all of our experiences regardless of whatever that is. I think we can come together to have an even louder collective voice, but I'm not too sure how to do that...
R: To be honest, I don’t actually think that there is a way. Not to be nihilistic, but I think that we will always continue to make the same mistakes. It will be reframed in a different way but we will always continue because that is unfortunately human nature. But, perhaps there’ll be ways we can actually solve some of them before the next one happens. It does seem as if this 100 year pandemic from the Spanish flu until now is kind of forgetting the AIDS pandemic which killed much more people.
J: And that’s basically what I was saying about everything being white-washed because that primarily affected gay people. Forty million people died, which is a hell of a lot more than the COVID-19 pandemic and most of those forty million died within the first six years of that pandemic and nothing was done about it. We didn’t even have any medical vaccine until the 90s and it began at the start of the 80s. Now, we’re talking about getting a vaccine for COVID-19 in March and that’s only because it affects the straight white men who have the power.
R: I thought the same thing that at the start of the pandemic – okay, I guess I’m just going to pander to your straight pandemic.
J: There was an STI that was affecting mainly pregnant women a few years ago – I can’t remember the name of it – and it was dealt with really quickly. Whereas because the AIDS crisis didn’t affect everyone personally, it wasn’t taken as seriously.
S: It’s so heart-breaking to think about. You were talking about collective voices within the arts community and the queer community – how important is having a sense of collaboration or collectivity when you're making art?
J: I think for me it's not necessarily collaboration in the making. It’s more about the discussion and the conversations that galleries can hold within that facility, and between everyone not even just the queer community. And that’s why I think stigma is such a huge thing in my work, whether that’s mental health, sexuality, gender, race. I think it's something through which we can all have shared experiences. They all might be different, but we then have a stronger collective voice because of it.
R: In art school days, I was so protective over my hand so only I was allowed to ever touch any of the artwork, or was ever allowed to make any of the artwork because I was that person who just wanted to have it all. I didn’t want to accept anyone else's help whereas now I've got my confidantes – people who I can go and talk to. Like you're saying, Joe that discussion is a collaborative thing. I’ve got a few confidantes and Laura McSorely [GENERATORprojects chair] is one of them. Gwen Dupré is one of them as well. She is one of the people I can play art tennis with, and we can discuss things. Gwen always gives me the best information with any artwork because she understands where I'm coming from as an artist, which is really important. I like this idea that curators are those people that help you with that, but I've found that someone like Gwen is much better because she already has a kind of shorthand that knows what your artwork is all about and can point you in the right direction.
S: Yeah, I think discussions with peers is a really important form as collaboration, it’s just not as obvious as other forms of collaboration.
R: Yeah, it’s a secret thing that people don’t usually talk about but it happens and it’s something that we maybe should discuss more. I mean, when actresses get an award, they always thank the people that got them there. So why aren't artists doing the same, giving voice to the people who help us?
S: We really should start doing that!
R: Before we go can I ask yous a question? If yous were doing Snatch Game, who would you choose?
J: I’d like to be Trixie Mattel.
R: That’s a really hard one, doing another drag queen. Do you not remember how her RuPaul one went? It didn’t go well….
J: I could do that!
R: *as Trixie as RuPaul* ‘winner, winner chicken......dinner’. *everyone laughs* Who would you be, Saoirse?
S: My first thought was Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray.
R: Ooh that’s a good one. Can you show a little bit to the class?
S: *sings* Bring ooon that pecan pie! Pooour some sugar on it sugar, don’t - be – shyyy.
R: Wow, that was stunning. *laughs all round*
~ Joseph and Saoirse forgot to ask Ross who he would choose for Snatch Game, but he has since divulged that he would be a sexy Count Dracula from the Muppets. ~
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