Image: Young Jean Lee’s 'The Shipment'

And the Thin White Duke said: “New York’s a go go and everything tastes nice…”

It had been a very long time. I temporarily set up home in New York during the early nineties but hadn’t been back since 1997, so when an opportunity came up to attend Under The Radar, an annual theatre symposium featuring new international work, it was time to make haste and go west. I’d been invited with my colleagues Francis Alexander and James Tilston from Chelsea Theatre - London’s key Live Art venue and events kicked off with true panache via a British Airways upgrade prompting obligatory refills of champagne.

After waking in a monochrome hotel room, it seemed fitting to re-trace familiar steps, after all, everyone said Manhattan had changed beyond recognition. So on a freezing January day I stepped out of the West 4th street subway onto 6th Avenue and right in front was the same basketball court and across the road the laundrette underneath my old apartment block. A kaleidoscope of flashbacks caused a momentary rush though nothing a Chinese massage, haircut at SoHo Hair and manicure at Thompson Nails couldn’t sort out. Afterwards, I met up with great friend Swax McIver, a writer who now works for Gogol Bordello and together we explored the West Village; it seems bizarre to see Chanel and Longchamp in SoHo. The area still retains a distinctive atmosphere but developments have created an inaccessibility keeping many folk at bay from the heart of the city; no wonder friends have up and gone to Brooklyn.

That evening brought the first performance with Lemon Andersen’s County Of Kings at the Public Theater where Under The Radar takes place. A hard-hitting rites of passage monologue, this Puerto Rican Hip Hop poet / actor delivered a rich and poignant redemption story to a rapturous audience. The next morning after a bleary start it was time to register, network and generally exhaust myself. The focus of the day being Liga – 50% Reward and 50% Punishment, a mischievous snipe at reality TV delivered with deadpan Dutch humour as grown-ups transformed into unruly wayward kids.




As the temperature began to drop outside over the days to follow, I remembered New York before the enforced changes. Before taxi drivers spoke English and offered you receipts and before Times Square resembled Tottenham Court Road-meets-Legoland as garish neon nightmare. Once you leave mid-town the changes become even more apparent. Chelsea these days houses Balenciaga and chi chi art galleries and museums - I went to see England in one - A stark, affecting work devised by the UK’s Tim Crouch and performed by Crouch and Hannah Ringham from Shunt. The piece is about heart transplants but really delves much deeper; I might even revisit this when it comes to Whitechapel soon.

It was time to look up more friends and no New Yorker strikes a chord in my heart more than a certain adorable Anglophile called Jeffrey Costello. Together with winsome partner Robert Tagliapietra, they’ve made a name for themselves in fashion with their eponymous clothing line Costello Tagliapietra. It snowed the day I visited them in Brooklyn, their building in the avenue of brownstones looking like chocolate Christmas cake.

Good Year For The Roses

In the meantime there was more to see including Young Jean Lee’s remarkable examination of attitudes towards African Americans: The Shipment (Which deserves a blog all of its own) and the beatboxer/musician/stand-up/writer and all round talent Reggie Watts with his delightful show Transition which packs more surprises than a boxful of crackers. Then after shows there were evening drinks in the lounge above the Public Theater, lots of them, every night and by pure chance I ran into long lost friend and handsome actor Alessandro Magania, once voted the rudest barman in London. Surprise guests performed after-hours turns including the great Justin Bond and the Reena Spallings band, an ensemble made up of members of the New York City Players whose cover of Elvis Costello’s Good Year For The Roses was an off-centre classic. Plus someone needs to know about M, a diva with a huge, rich, vocal range who works a piano and crowd like a gothic Nina Simone on Quaaludes…





And then it was time to come home, all too soon, and I didn’t even get to go to Barney’s….Oh and Francis and James were the best travelling companions…….