A Few Words on Tipping the Velvet and Drag Kings

I was at a drag show not too long ago, and it got me thinking again of Tipping the Velvet and its portrayal of male impersonators in Victorian London.  The actual drag performances are a mixed bag – Rachael Stirling is glorious, and I’ve already voiced my lackluster feelings about Keeley Hawes – and the historical look at the practice is intriguing.  I’m so interested in drag, anyway, and media depictions of it, especially from other eras, offer a lot to explore.

First, I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about what male impersonators were like in 19^th-century music halls, so I can’t speak to the miniseries’ accuracy or lack thereof.  I do think it’s neat that they appear to have been very mainstream.  Kitty and Nan hit it big in London, performing for what looks to be a pretty varied crowd.  True, they do a single routine in a show with many acts, so there are probably some people in their audiences who don’t care for them much, but they still get awfully famous.  While there’s a whiff of cheekiness to what they do and it’s a bit shocking for people, there’s not a sense that they belong to this underground niche that’s only for fringe groups and well-to-do people taking a detour into something scandalous. 

Once again, I simply don’t get how Kitty is supposed to be this astounding drag king.  There’s not a thing about her that projects masculinity.  Her voice – both singing and speaking – is high and soft, she doesn’t make any effort to mask her feminine features, and her demeanor is all wrong.  And yet, people praise her six ways to Sunday for making such a convincing boy.  Mystifying.  Technically, this performance might have been accurate for male impersonators of the time; like I said, I really don’t know.  Maybe simply seeing a woman in trousers with short hair was enough to spell “dude” for the Victorians.  I did notice that both Kitty and Nan are billed with their own names instead of with that of male drag personas.  And from a story perspective, I guess it makes sense to make her femininity so obvious, since seeing Kitty perform prompts Nan’s first sexual and romantic feelings.  However, I don’t know how anyone could look at her and commend her for her drag skills.

Nan, on the other hand, is a superb drag king.  Rachael Stirling’s husky voice, which she pitches even lower onstage, helps tremendously, but her look, posture, and movements all contribute to the effect.  She acts and carries herself like a man, and when she performs, she’s attractive in a distinctly masculine way.  I definitely buy that she can pass herself off as a man on the streets of London, whereas I’d never believe Kitty capable of the same. 

On a further note, I really like how Nan is appreciated for this quality.  The first time Kitty sees her in drag is the first time they kiss, and Mrs. Lethaby is completely enamored of the “handsome” Nan, often referring to Nan as her “boy” during their liaisons.  Yeah, it plays into the erroneous notion that, in same-sex relationships one person plays the “man” and the other the “woman,” but it also represents the far more seldom-shown idea that women who are thought of as masculine can be desirable.  With lesbian and bi women in the media so often portrayed as conventionally feminine, it can be harder to find queer women who are even slightly butch, and even then, it’s rare to see someone falling for them.  One might fall in love with other (usually conventionally feminine) women, and you may glimpse one in an already-established relationship (which probably doesn’t get much focus,) but to see another woman look at her and go, “She’s stunning!” doesn’t happen nearly enough.  Way to go, Tipping the Velvet!

Favorite Characters: Nan Astley (Tipping the Velvet)

 

While I thought this miniseries was just pretty good, I’m all about its main character.  Nan is right up my alley – she’s smart and adventurous, she’s brave when it comes to love, and even though her life is so often a mess, she just rolls up her sleeves and keeps going.  Definitely a terrific heroine.

 

Bildungsroman tales are usually good for main character development, and Tipping the Velvet happily obliges.  It’s wonderful to watch Nan’s journey, both from Brighton to London and to a greater, truer understanding of herself.  We meet her as a bright, unpolished small-town girl, sort of vaguely discontented but not quite aware of it.  She works as expected in her family shop, she stays in her small world, and she goes disinterestedly with a boy because that’s what you do.  She assumes that love is something that just happens in the background, nothing worth all the songs about it.

 

Until she goes to the music hall with her family and sees Kitty for the first time.  Onscreen, you can practically see her dividing her life into two phases from that moment:  before Kitty and after.  I adore her early reactions, because she doesn’t realize what’s happening.  She doesn’t know she’s in love; she’s never felt it before, and I suppose it doesn’t occur to her that she could fall in love with a girl.  As such, there’s no shame or secrecy or wrestling with forbidden feelings.  Rather, her regard is open and artless, and this somewhat shy girl bubbles up with talk of Kitty at every chance she gets.  What she feels is a revelation for her, and she simply has to share it with anyone who will listen.  I love that, that innocence and simplicity before she’s taught to be covert with her affections.

 

She’s so awkward and sweet in love.  She throws herself into it with the most headlong abandon, though, as I said, she learns to conceal it (barely – she says and does the “proper” things in public, but her adoration radiates from her eyes and her smile.)  She’s daring, and she gets burned more than once, but even when she’s been torn up by someone who’s careless with her heart, she pulls herself out of it.  She carries on, and after she’s had time to lick her wounds and buck up her courage once more, she throws herself into love again.

 

I’m so impressed with her boldness.  Obviously, it takes a lot of nerve just to be her in the 1890s – to love women, to challenge ideas of gender expression.  It’s thrilling to see how comfortable she becomes in her own skin when she starts dressing in boys’ clothes, so much more confident and more genuinely the person she wants to be.  And I don’t mean specifically from a gender perspective.  I mean, to do and say everything her shyness and shaky self-esteem ordinary prevent.  And beyond that (and her aforementioned courage in love,) she’s brave in so many other ways.  She leaves the only home she’s ever known to venture into the big city, she pursues and seizes a career on the stage, and during her leaner times, she keeps herself alive, putting one foot in front of the other and forever on the lookout for a way to improve her fortunes.  The woman is a boss.

Tipping the Velvet (2002)

 

Netflix has been dangling this BBC miniseries in front of me for a long time, and I finally checked it out.  I’ll admit that Benedict Cumberbatch has a small role in the first episode, and that’s part of the reason it reached the top of my queue right now, but I knew from the start that I wanted to watch all three parts.  It’s rough but earnest, with an engaging style and an excellent heroine.

 

Set late in the Victorian age (around the 1890s,) Tipping the Velvet is the bildungsroman tale of Nan Astley, an 18-year-old “oyster girl” living with her family in a small seaside town.  Nan’s desires are awakened when, on a trip to the local music hall, she’s transfixed by male impersonator Kitty Butler.  She falls quickly, almost unconsciously, in love with Kitty and soon follows her to London as Kitty searches for big-time stage success.

 

From there, Nan’s life is a whirlwind of show business, joy, heartbreak, poverty, and tentative renewal.  Love spins her around, she explores the wide spectrum of gender and gender identity, and she hangs on for dear life through dizzying highs and crushing lows.  Rachael Stirling (who was wonderful as Ada in “The Crimson Horror” on Who last season) plays Nan with heart, nerve, and vulnerability.  Her tumble into love with Kitty is so open and artless, and her meandering growth into a young woman is fascinating.  I love watching her blossom in her timid first steps toward a music-hall career, I feel for her during her hard times, and I admire her fierce, ever-present yearning for love.

 

Plenty of fine British actors on display here.  Nan’s dream girl Kitty is played by Keeley Hawes from the U.K. version of Death at a Funeral, and Sally Hawkins (Anne in the 2007 Persuasion,) Jodhi May (Mrs. Weston in the 2009 Emma,) and Anna Chancellor (Caroline Bingley in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice – wow, lots of Austen alumni!) also get in on the fun.  (I should mention that, more recently, Anna Chancellor played Lix on The Hour, fabulously.)  It’s a pretty female-centric story, but on the gent’s side, we have supporting roles from Dean Lennox Kelly (Kev on Shameless, Shakespeare from series 3 of Who) and Hugh Bonneville (from “The Curse of the Black Spot” in series 6 of Who, and of course Lord Grantham on Downton Abbey.)

 

I really like the direction here.  The camera work and music do an excellent job of letting you into Nan’s head.  There’s the way the sound fades out and the camera pulls Kitty toward you when Nan sees her perform for the first time, or the frenetic, merry-go-round perspective when she’s desperate and hungry on the London streets.  I’m reminded a little of the chaotic heightened reality of Baz Luhrmann’s work.

 

I’ll warn that the miniseries is somewhat uneven.  The middle episode, rather than merely incorporating sex into the plot, seems to depict sex in lieu of plot, which gets kind of boring.  Also, Keeley Hawes makes the least convincing drag king I’ve ever seen.  I get that male impersonation in the 1890s was probably very different from modern drag performance, but seriously – with her gliding movements, whispery singing voice, and soft feminine features, I scott at all the numerous characters who talk about how great Kitty is at what she does.  Rachael Stirling is worlds better.