Although he’s become a darling of the London scene with his cabaret shows at alternative East End queer club, The Glory, Roscommon native Anthony Keigher, aka Xnthony, has always had his eye on a bigger prize, as his new show at the Dublin Fringe attests. As Xnthony gears up to rebrand himself as a straight for pop stardom, Keigher talks to Brian Finnegan about fame, his own Marvel Universe, fake authenticity, and the strange correlation between queerness and rural life.

Interview

Alter Ego – Fame – Playing Straight

Photos by Luxxxer.

Even Lady Gaga’s gone ‘authentic’.” So says Anthony Keigher, aka international celebrity wannabe, Xnthony, who returns to the Dublin Fringe this year with a sequel to his 2015 show, Douze, in which he made a bid for Eurovision glory with a song selected by the audience. This time around, having failed to get to the finals, Xnthony is seeking to reinvent himself, as a very on-trend, inoffensive pop star in the vein of Ed Sheeran.

“Gaga had that Artpop phase, which was just a disaster; so she came back with Joanne, which was country. Then Beiber comes out with ‘I’m so sorry,’ or Miley turns from acidic pop queen to softness and balloons. Everyone’s trying to rebrand as authentic, trying to appear like Ed Sheeran or the queen of authentic, Adele. But there’s nothing authentic about it at all.”

Xnthony equates authentic with a kind of straight queerness, and his show, The Power of Wow, sees him marry collaborator Tiffany Murphy every night for the run, with the audience attending their wedding.

“He’s rebranding himself as a straight man and getting married to a woman to broaden his audience,” the 28 year-old Keigher says. “It’s a comment on the homogenisation of queerness. It’s about being gay, about denial, about failure and trying to be authentic. It’s about truth, but at the same time it’s the least authentic I’ve ever been.”

Keigher grew up in Roscommon town, and he’s acutely aware of its reputation in the wake of the 2015 marriage referendum, when the county was the only one to vote No. “I know that Roscommon has bad branding,” he says. “There was a huge push from the Yes side, but the politicians there just didn’t push it. I don’t think the people are bad. I never felt isolated in Roscommon, ever. If you’re a hard worker, and you work well in the community, it doesn’t matter what your background is, or what you’re doing.”

Indeed, Keigher’s coming of age as a gay teenager in the town seems to have bordered on idyllic. “I came out when I was about 16 and it was quite a big thing in Roscommon at the time, but my school (CBS) was amazing about it. My principal walked me around the school and was like, ‘it’s okay, you’re a little bit different, don’t worry about it, it’s fine’.

“There were some problems with other students, but mostly it was fine. By the time I was in Leaving Cert, it wasn’t even a thing for me anymore.”

Having grown up on a farm, Keigher sees some crossover between the rural experience and the queer experience, an odd dichotomy he’ll be exploring with the show that comes after The Power of Wow.

“We’re aiming to make a show that’s a pop concert that’s inspired by Roscommon, merging rural life with disco pop in a bringing together of rural queerness. I like the starkness of a peacock like Xnthony arriving in Roscommon to put on a pop concert; it’s really exciting and it hasn’t been done before. To me queerness and rural life are really intertwined. There’s a really strong connection there that hasn’t really been mined.

“I’ve always had this idea that ruralness is a form of otherness, and so is queerness. The city has all these available outlets for people to go to, but if you go to Roscommon there’s a different kind of otherness that’s about storytelling, which to me has a queer perspective, a different outlook on things.

“I like this idea that there’s probably this accountant in rural Galway who’s totally queer, but he’s straight with a family. I like the idea of the everyman being that. I really enjoy meeting somebody who is supposedly a pleb but they have this really super awareness of the world that queer people have.”

This forthcoming show is another element of what he calls “a kind of Marvel Universe, where you have all the movies that are related to each other telling different narratives.”

“It will be more of a genuine attempt at music and pop concerts, it’s not as ironic and funny,” he says. The question is then, where is the line between Anthony Keigher and Xnthony drawn?

“It’s a version of drag and if I didn’t have it I’d go kind of mental. It channels a psychotic craziness into a platform, which means that in my daily life I’m much quieter. I’m not really a social person, in that I don’t find being around people that interesting. I store up all my energy for stage. I’m still crazy in my real life, but it’s definitely more profound on stage.”

Much of that stage time, when he’s not performing at the Edinburgh Fringe (which he did this year, with Douze), the Dublin Fringe or at other theatrical engagements, is beneath the lights of The Glory, the alternative queer performance club in East London co-owned by drag queen Jonny Woo.

“I never really expected to hit the London scene at all because I was much more focused on the wider picture, touring around the UK and Europe,” he says. “But then Jonny asked me to do something, so we did a cabaret in March, and then I teamed up with Peter Fingleton, who is also from Dublin, and we created a night called Sodom & Begorrah, which showcased queer Irish acts celebrating their immigration to London. It was a huge success. People really wanted a break from Brexit sadness, and we were bringing a real sense of Irish fun.”

Speaking of Brexit, Keigher describes is as “a bit of a hit”. “Sometimes London can be very intense,” he adds. “I always go back to Dublin for Fringe, and I love it, but Dublin and London can’t be compared in the same sentence. In Dublin for instance, there’s a different kind of drag, it’s more polished; it’s a different kind of craft. London drag is more discombobulated, messy and trashy, and I don’t know if it would play well in Dublin. Also because London is a much more open place, you don’t need to be so well connected. You can rely on what your CV says sometimes, rather than in Dublin where it’s a name.”

Back in Dublin, Keigher’s alter-ego will be seeking fame once more on the Fringe stage. As our chat comes to an end, I wonder if he had fantasies of celebrity like Xnthony’s when he was growing up.

“When I was 15 or 16, I realised I’d really love to be a pop star,” he says. “Then I went to art college and began to explore that from an outside looking in perspective, and I thought it was far more interesting to develop a character who wanted to be a popstar rather than actually be a pop star.

“But you could also imagine that Xnthony could possibly do the Eurovision. Stranger things have happened. That kind of irony and meta-awareness is possibly what people need at times.”

‘The Power of Wow’ is at Bewley’s Café Theatre from Sept 19 to 23 at 8pm, www.fringefest.com

The Fringe Pink List

We’re pretty stoked about the sheer volume of totally queer shows at this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival. Here’s the lowdown…

MDLSX

Project Arts Centre: Sept 15 and 16, 8.30pm

A riffon Jeffery Eugenides’ epic intersex novel, Middlesex, that includes a DJ set, this gender-blending monologue cries freedom from the boundaries of the body, skin colour, sexual organs, and national identity.

Triple Threat

Project Arts Centre: Sept 19-23: 9.15pm

If you didn’t catch her at Yestival last May, now’s your chance to experience ultra-feminist Lucy McCormick powering on up with her queer as fuck royal variety show.

B!RTH Choices

Project Arts Centre: Sept 16 & 17: 6.15pm Written and performed renowned lesbian playwright, Stacey Gregg (who is having a baby with her partner this year), this show looks at reproductive choices and the inherent challenges.

Aon Mhac Tíre Nó Roinnt Mic Tíre

Project Arts Centre: Sept 22 & 23: 7.15pm Ruairí Donovan and Mica Sigourney explore queer brotherhood and the border between the Irish republic and the north.

Dummy

Peacock at The Abbey: Sept 9-16: 6.30pm Written and directed by Irish gay couple, Peter Dunne and Donncha O’Dea, this darkly funny tale toys with family dysfunction, with a little ventriquilsim thrown in for good measure.

Dear Attracta

The New Theatre: Sept 19-23: 8.30pm The Fringe debut of very brand new drag star, Attracta Tension, an old-style Agony Aunt with problems to share.

The Power of Wow

Bewley’s Café Theatre: Sept 19-23: 8pm Our cover-star Xnthony goes straight and gets married in an effort to finally make it in the fame game.

Fully Automated Luxury Gender Oasis

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios: Sept 15-19: 2.30-8pm Artist collective, The Trans Live Art Salon hosts a space with performances, readings, queer skill-sharing workshops, and tea.

Tomboy Survival Guide

Peacock at The Abbey: Sept 21-23: 9pm Writer and storyteller Ivan Coyote and an all-tomboy band invite you to dismantle the gender stories we tell each other.

Everything Now

Smock Alley Theatre: Sept 13-17: 6.30pm Gay choreographer John Scott’s new show with Irish Modern Dance Theatre is a rollercoaster ride with beautiful dancing men, a multicultural chorus, dazzling lights, stunning sounds and physical explosions.

Within Rooms

The Lir Academy: Sept 12-16: 6.30pm A group of über queer Brazilian performers star in this equally queer play exploring the relationship between four young people living together in San Paulo.

Black Jam

Fibber Magees: Sept 21: 8.30pm Feminist, queer and punk politics are ignited in this celebration of African music featuring a stellar line-up of alt Afro performers, and dancing.

“It’s about being gay, about denial, about failure and trying to be authentic. It’s about truth, but at the same time it’s the least authentic I’ve ever been.

“To me queerness and rural life are really intertwined. There’s a really strong connection there that hasn’t really been mined.