He stands a commanding six-foot-six tall (and that’s before he dons 6-inch heels). He’s often sporting a ball gown. His makeup rivals the colourful face of a teen TikTok star. He’s Le Gateau Chocolat, an acclaimed performer and drag artist, and everyone wants a piece.
The Nigerian-born, British-raised performer is hard to quantify, because his prolific output spans the genres of opera, cabaret, musical theatre, pop, disco and children’s theatre. Ask the man himself, and he’ll laugh. “What do I do? I’m a provocateur, auteur, opera, theatre, art-making being…”
The Nigerian-born, British-raised performer is hard to quantify, because his prolific output spans the genres of opera, cabaret, musical theatre, pop, disco and children’s theatre. Ask the man himself, and he’ll laugh. “What do I do? I’m a provocateur, auteur, opera, theatre, art-making being…”
“His prolific output spans the genres of opera, cabaret, musical theatre, pop, disco and children’s theatre.”
From law to stage
Le Gateau Chocolat was studying to be a lawyer when the siren call of theatre and opera proved too strong. He’s been performing in drag since 2008, but it’s reductive to describe him as a drag queen (he prefers drag artist). He’s performed Wagner on stage in Bayreuth (a confronting experience), Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre and Brecht at the National Theatre. He’s toured cabaret around the world and created his own celebrated children’s theatre (Duckie is based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Ugly Duckling, but in Gateau’s version, the duckling grows up to be … a bigger duck. “You don’t always need to become beautiful. It’s about embracing the fullness of yourself.”)
Joy in darkness
At the heart of everything he does, is a desire to give his audience “pure joy”. It’s his response to a world that is full of sadness. “Can we just sit in a room and understand our shared humanity and laugh?”
But he’s not afraid to tackle the darker side of life either, starring in an autobiographical work titled Black and tackling racism, misogyny and his own depression. He’s outspoken about the issues that intersect in his identity. In other words, “behind the makeup and the lashes and the poster … there’s a human being there.”
Le Gateau Chocolat performs with the ACO in this year’s Cocteau’s Circle, an entertaining journey into les années folles (the crazy years of 1920s Paris). Directed by Richard Tognetti and Circa’s Yaron Lifschitz, it will be an immersive look at the innovative composers who hung out with Jean Cocteau at the transgressive cabaret bar Le Boeuf sur le toit.
As Le Gateau Chocolat’s profile has grown, his shows have got bigger and bigger. This is his first time performing with the full ensemble of the ACO, but as an accomplished operatic bass, he’s right at home. “I always start from music in my practice – I let music lead me into how I might want to shape a piece or make a piece.”
Le Gateau Chocolat was studying to be a lawyer when the siren call of theatre and opera proved too strong. He’s been performing in drag since 2008, but it’s reductive to describe him as a drag queen (he prefers drag artist). He’s performed Wagner on stage in Bayreuth (a confronting experience), Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre and Brecht at the National Theatre. He’s toured cabaret around the world and created his own celebrated children’s theatre (Duckie is based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Ugly Duckling, but in Gateau’s version, the duckling grows up to be … a bigger duck. “You don’t always need to become beautiful. It’s about embracing the fullness of yourself.”)
Joy in darkness
At the heart of everything he does, is a desire to give his audience “pure joy”. It’s his response to a world that is full of sadness. “Can we just sit in a room and understand our shared humanity and laugh?”
But he’s not afraid to tackle the darker side of life either, starring in an autobiographical work titled Black and tackling racism, misogyny and his own depression. He’s outspoken about the issues that intersect in his identity. In other words, “behind the makeup and the lashes and the poster … there’s a human being there.”
Le Gateau Chocolat performs with the ACO in this year’s Cocteau’s Circle, an entertaining journey into les années folles (the crazy years of 1920s Paris). Directed by Richard Tognetti and Circa’s Yaron Lifschitz, it will be an immersive look at the innovative composers who hung out with Jean Cocteau at the transgressive cabaret bar Le Boeuf sur le toit.
As Le Gateau Chocolat’s profile has grown, his shows have got bigger and bigger. This is his first time performing with the full ensemble of the ACO, but as an accomplished operatic bass, he’s right at home. “I always start from music in my practice – I let music lead me into how I might want to shape a piece or make a piece.”
“It will be an immersive look at the innovative composers who hung out with Jean Cocteau at the transgressive cabaret bar Le Boeuf sur le toit.”
On the power of representation
Representation in cultural spaces is vital, he says, because “as a British Nigerian gay man I didn’t see myself in theatres or spaces like this.” To have a platform in this way is a privilege, he says, and a gift he can give to the audience. “When diversity serves its purpose, which is representation, entertainment becomes more than entertainment, it becomes possibility.”
Whatever the project, he’s happy to constantly break the mould. “I just don’t sit within the lines that they have drawn for what they think I should offer,” he explained to The Big Issue. “That applies to me in drag, that applies to me when I’m out of drag. I feel like just existing, in drag or out of drag, has become a form of defiance.”
Joy, laughter, and the powerful vehicle of drag
While he’s quick not to discount the toll of marginalisation and bigotry in his own life and for his community, Le Gateau Chocolat has found a way to make his defiance joyful – and hilarious. “Laughing is an opening into heightened emotions. When you are heightened, there’s also the opportunity for you to be open, and after the laugh, or through the laugh, you can see the messages that are important, which is, shared humanity.”
Click here to discover and book Cocteau's Circle, touring to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra from 8-22 November.
Written by Jennifer Williams
Representation in cultural spaces is vital, he says, because “as a British Nigerian gay man I didn’t see myself in theatres or spaces like this.” To have a platform in this way is a privilege, he says, and a gift he can give to the audience. “When diversity serves its purpose, which is representation, entertainment becomes more than entertainment, it becomes possibility.”
Whatever the project, he’s happy to constantly break the mould. “I just don’t sit within the lines that they have drawn for what they think I should offer,” he explained to The Big Issue. “That applies to me in drag, that applies to me when I’m out of drag. I feel like just existing, in drag or out of drag, has become a form of defiance.”
Joy, laughter, and the powerful vehicle of drag
While he’s quick not to discount the toll of marginalisation and bigotry in his own life and for his community, Le Gateau Chocolat has found a way to make his defiance joyful – and hilarious. “Laughing is an opening into heightened emotions. When you are heightened, there’s also the opportunity for you to be open, and after the laugh, or through the laugh, you can see the messages that are important, which is, shared humanity.”
Click here to discover and book Cocteau's Circle, touring to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Canberra from 8-22 November.
Written by Jennifer Williams
