Miss UFO at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
The world, you’ll have noticed, is kind of shit these days. Wouldn’t an alternative be nice? For nearly half a century, Andrew Logan has been offering a platform for inhabitants of parallel dimensions to display their poise, personality and originality through Alternative Miss World (AMW), the pageant from beyond. The latest edition – the fourteenth since 1972 – was held on Saturday under the theme of psychedelic peace, with a “gently lysergic” evening promised for all. As demonstrated by Holly Revell’s fabulous photos below, it more than delivered, once again showcasing AMW’s delirious and distinctly British combination of pomp and pageantry, DIY creativity, bizarre eccentricity and earthy utopianism – even if, this year, none of the contestants were robots or livestock.
Like the last edition in 2014, the venue was Shakespeare’s Globe. (Regarding the 2014 edition, read my interview with Andrew Logan here and review of the pageant here.) It’s an ideal setting, at once splendid and intimate, allowing for both grand spectacle and panto vibes, helped by the fab outfits most groundlings put together, all peace signs, glitter and outré headpieces. Logan and co-host Sara Kestelman gamely tried to keep order as the 17 contestants strutted their stuff while, as compère, Eve Ferret, resplendent in a plum peignoir, struck just the right balance of affection and cheek.
The theme of psychedelic peace highlighted that AMW is basically a product of the Baby Boomer generation, one of the last enduring expressions of a mostly faded radical vision of peace, love and expanded horizons. There was something at once nostalgic and galvanising about its insistence on the possibility of better worlds – a spirit conspicuously evoked in the joyously perverse interaction between on and off stage, the colourfully decorated fleshy bits of the Neo Naturists and the celebratory gyrations of cabaret act Drag Syndrome (a group of drag artists with Down’s syndrome) to Divine’s ‘I’m So Beautiful’. There were also one or two more awkwardly dated moments such as the dashes of cultural appropriation in the messages of some of the “peace envoys” and the overwhelming whiteness of the dozens-strong Psychedelic Peacettes dance troupe.
The contestants themselves were predictably glorious. Some highlights: Miss Una Nimity’s giant pet crab and clamshell clitoris; Miss Baubo Bell Namma Rella’s living cartoon, all face and legs; Miss Aware’s trompe-l’oeil ensemble letting her medidate cross-legged on a clouded mountaintop; Miss Demeanour’s mash-up of Lady Justice with Quality Street; Miss Intricately Exquisite’s bodacious Valkyrie look comprising hundreds of recycled tights and stockings; and the unapologetic trash drag glam of Miss The Real Miss Piers Atkinson (sic). As in 2014, there were several Elizabethan looks, their voluminous dresses enhanced this time by wearable lights, imperialist blood stains or – thanks to Miss Cariad Cymru On Me – detachable champagne flutes.
There were of course moments of technical wobble: Miss Psychic Timebomb’s billowing gold cloud needed a little encouragement; Miss Lysergic Acid had a spot of bother with both her giant butterfly wings and her 15-foot extendable revolving jellyfish canopy; and, during the swimwear round, Miss Poundland Couture’s mast and rigging got trapped in a doorway. But that only made their eventual success all the more charming and enjoyable. AMW is at its best when the wheels threaten to come off, with Logan palpably delighted at the rowdy mess of it all.
The deserving winner was Miss UFO, whose molecular-modular chic offered a gorgeously post-human vision of wit, fun, beauty, movement and spectacle, befuddling the body and evoking everything from a playground to a virus, an ice-cream sundae to a social-media hellscape. Her victory just left one question: how do you crown someone with 17 heads?
Andrew Logan (left) with Miss Una Nimity at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss Intricately Exquisite at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss UFO at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Drag Syndrome at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss Poundland Couture at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss Baubo Bell Namma Rella at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss Psychic Timebomb at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss Baubo Bell Namma Rella at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Miss Lysergic Acid at Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
Andrew Logan crowns Miss UFO, winner of Alternative Miss World at Shakespeare’s Globe, 20 October 2018. Image © Holly Revell.
