Delectations

Respectability. Every now and then, the British manage to make the unmentionable mentionable. Take Enoch Powell, a decent man with an undeserved reputation for wanting to be nasty to the coloreds. What he has done, and more power to him, is to make people sit up and listen to the Conservatives, which they haven’t done for years, largely thanks to the Conservatives themselves. It’s nonsense to say that Mr. Powell has stirred up race hatred. He is merely expressing what most Englishmen probably think, yet what no politician has had the courage to say, much less contemplate measures for. I think he should be praised.

Another man I admire is Danny La Rue, a female impersonator who is very dear to the heart of London. So much so that he is the star of a pantomime called Queen Passionella and the Sleeping Beauty. Now, pantomimes are Christmastime divertissements for the kiddies, whose birthright it is to be taken to one every year—kiddies of every class. Pantomimes aren’t genteel, what with knobbly knees and striped-drawers jokes made by the Principal Dame, a male comedian (all in the best eighteenth-century music hall tradition), and beautiful scares with witches, villains and other horrors made more tingling by modern stage effects. But still, a man in drag? Well, Mr. La Rue’s Queen Passionella turns out to be one of the great, glamorous, gorgeous beauties of stage and screen, with irresistible allure added to a ravishing face and physique, and with nary a strange, titillating fancy to feed those hungry for such. His innumerable wigs and his gowns, lavish beyond imagination in silk or velvet, tight to a delectable figure and with slashed and fanned and hobbled skirts for intricate dancing, dazzle in the grand old manner, the manner of true stardom. Mr. La Rue is radiantly lovely and lovable as he gets the kiddies on the stage for a sing-along with him. Since he never makes any attempt to disguise his deep voice, you know he is a man, one who chooses to act in feminine dress because it makes him look good, and with a wife and kiddies in the suburbs. No wonder his pantomime is the success of the season. I am told, however, that Mr. La Rue performs somewhat differently in his nightclub, and that his TV show would have curdled the blood of America. Ah well.

NH

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Nika Hazelton

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British Conservative Party

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Food

Respectability. Every now and then, the British manage to make the unmentionable mentionable. Take Enoch Powell, a decent man with an undeserved reputation for wanting to be nasty to the coloreds. What he has done, and more power to him, is to make people sit up and listen to the Conservatives, which they haven’t done for years, largely thanks to the Conservatives themselves. It’s nonsense to say that Mr. Powell has stirred up race hatred. He is merely expressing what most Englishmen probably think, yet what no politician has had the courage to say, much less contemplate measures for. I think he should be praised.

Another man I admire is Danny La Rue, a female impersonator who is very dear to the heart of London. So much so that he is the star of a pantomime called Queen Passionella and the Sleeping Beauty. Now, pantomimes are Christmastime divertissements for the kiddies, whose birthright it is to be taken to one every year—kiddies of every class. Pantomimes aren’t genteel, what with knobbly knees and striped-drawers jokes made by the Principal Dame, a male comedian (all in the best eighteenth-century music hall tradition), and beautiful scares with witches, villains and other horrors made more tingling by modern stage effects. But still, a man in drag? Well, Mr. La Rue’s Queen Passionella turns out to be one of the great, glamorous, gorgeous beauties of stage and screen, with irresistible allure added to a ravishing face and physique, and with nary a strange, titillating fancy to feed those hungry for such. His innumerable wigs and his gowns, lavish beyond imagination in silk or velvet, tight to a delectable figure and with slashed and fanned and hobbled skirts for intricate dancing, dazzle in the grand old manner, the manner of true stardom. Mr. La Rue is radiantly lovely and lovable as he gets the kiddies on the stage for a sing-along with him. Since he never makes any attempt to disguise his deep voice, you know he is a man, one who chooses to act in feminine dress because it makes him look good, and with a wife and kiddies in the suburbs. No wonder his pantomime is the success of the season. I am told, however, that Mr. La Rue performs somewhat differently in his nightclub, and that his TV show would have curdled the blood of America. Ah well.