Snail Trails: Queerness, Nature & Unruly Bodies

This Pride Month we welcome you to an evening of queer ecology, performance and joyful provocation at the Garden, as award winning drag king Bi-Curious George presents a WIP sharing of his brand new show: Snail Trail, followed by a panel discussion exploring queer ecologies, pests and identity.

About the event

A slow, slimy exploration of trans-masculinity, hormones and being a pest. Celebrate soft bellies, sensuality, rotting and renewal in this drag-comedy that offers queer alternatives for anyone with a body.

Snail Trail is about living in a body that conflicts with the world around you. It is about revelling in the sticky, oozing, slimy bits of existence and finding the joy in being repulsive. It is a manifesto for the pests and the creepy crawlies among us. It is an invitation to slow down, to touch and taste and feel, to rub up against the world, to snog with your entire soft body and make sure to leave a shimmery trail everywhere you go. It is about building our bodies into homes and repairing the cracks in our armour. It is about compost and regrowth and vegetables.

But ultimately, we do not quite know what it is about yet, because this is a work in progress and you are invited to help find out.

The sharing will be followed by an informal panel discussion, inviting two queer ecology experts to join Bi-Curious George in conversation about queerness in the ‘natural’ world. Drawing connections between ecology and lived experience, the panel asks how plants, animals, pests, slime, soil and decay trouble ideas of what is ‘natural’, ‘normal’, productive or desirable.

Artist Bio:

Once described by Graham Norton as “energetic and charming” and by The Spectator as “a chap, or maybe not a chap”, Bi-Curious George is an award winning drag king whose work centres around queer ecology. Using silliness and camp tomfoolery, he aims to shatter the heteronormative lens through which we view the natural world and empower people to reframe their identities and their relationships to ‘nature’.

Their 5 star solo show, Queer Planet, has been performed across the UK, including at the Southbank Centre, Soho Theatre, Kew Gardens, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Nottingham Playhouse and Hull Truck Theatre.

“The embodiment of queer joy” – The Scotsman.

“Everything you could ever want in a drag show” – Theatre and Other Things.

Booking Information

This event takes place upstairs in our Gallery space. The Gallery is located within a historic building and, due to pre-existing structural constraints, is accessible only via a staircase of 22 steps with a handrail.

If you would like to discuss access requirements in advance of booking, please contact us at enquiries@chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk and we will be happy to assist.

Doors open at 5.30pm. The performance will begin promptly at 6pm.