Resident Alien
by Tim Fountain
Oxford Playhouse 18/5/02

Resident Alien is a one man show based on the life and writings of Quentin Crisp. OBIE* award winner Bette Bourne performs the role on a set that replicates Crisp’s famously filthy East Village apartment in New York, complete with mice and several layers of dust. The plot is rather an incidental feature, which allows Crisp to share his thoughts with the audience: Crisp is awaiting the arrival of Mr Brown and Mr Black who want to put Crisp’s thoughts on how to be happy on to the web.

Actor, Bette Bourne portrays 91-year-old Crisp with integrity and at no point does he slip into self parody. He brings out the balance of pathos and humour that is found in Tim Fountain’s touching script. Crisp died in 1999, just as this play started doing the rounds and this piece provides an insight in to his distinctive philosophy of life with many quotable lines,
‘Ask yourself, “If there were no praise, and no blame, who would I be then?” Then you know who you are and what your style is.’
He puts us straight on several twentieth century events and personalities: Princess Diana was Lady Diana before she was Princess Diana so she knew the racket and she knew that Royal marriages were nothing to do with love. His view of the future of television is a dismal one, stating that
‘Television has so much spare time everyone will be on it in the end.’
When it comes to discussions of education he is equally derisive, claiming
‘Education is a last wild effort on the part of the authorities to prevent an overdose of leisure from driving the world mad.’
You may not agree with everything he says, but then in his own words,
‘I don’t say things to be liked. I say them because I mean them.’

I left feeling that should I get past the pearly gates, Quentin Crisp is the first person I want to have a drink with. The nearest I can get right now is Bette Bourne who ends a stylish evening with a toast,
‘To life! A funny thing that happens to you on the way to the grave.’

*The Village Voice OBIE Awards, Off-Broadway’s highest honour.

by Lita Doolan