Fatt Butcher's Nightclub Mass Comes to Warwick Arts Centre

Fatt Butcher’s Congregational, a choral mass for closing nightclubs, plays Warwick Arts Centre on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November at 7.45pm. The arts centre is on the University of Warwick campus in Coventry, about seven miles from Leamington.

Tickets start at £13.50 for under-26s. They are on the arts centre’s event page or from the box office on 024 7649 6000.

The Birmingham composer and vocalist wrote the show in response to queer nightlife spaces closing. It is billed as a new avant-garde musical that turns a theatre into a nightclub, and the release puts it this way: “Part choral concert. Part rave. Part Communion. Part act of resistance.”

Why Fatt Butcher made it

The release opens bluntly: “The nightclubs are closing, the village is dying, we’re tired and scared, but the beat of the dance floor’s heart keeps on pumping.”

Fatt Butcher explains the idea in their own words:

“Nightclubs have saved countless queer lives. They’ve given us somewhere to grieve, somewhere to celebrate, somewhere to fall apart and somewhere to become ourselves. Congregational is about honouring those spaces and asks what happens when those venues die? It’s an invitation to see the club for what it always was, something sacred. It’s joyful, messy, emotional, funny, spiritual, sweaty and loud, just like queer nightlife has always been.”

What happens on the night

The show reimagines the traditional choral mass as what the release calls “a funeral-cum-resurrection for disappearing nightlife venues”. Audiences are invited to sing, dance and join the congregation “in a temporary cathedral built from sound systems, harmony and sweat”.

The music is a set of newly composed “hymns for the dancefloor”. They blend house, trance, gospel, classical and experimental music. The release sums up the mood as a “celebration of community, survival and collective ecstasy”, and adds: “and yes, there will be poppers!”

It does not stop when the singing does. Every performance ends in an after-party with a live DJ. “Because some ceremonies shouldn’t end when the lights come up,” the release says.

Who is in it

Fatt Butcher created the music and arrangements with Nicky Harris and Tobre. Fatt Butcher also wrote the script and lyrics, with additional lyrics by Adam Zmith. On stage, Nicky Harris accompanies them with the Gloryholes Choir, whose members are:

• Adam Vaughan
• Bobby Harding
• Cardamon Rozzi
• CN Lester
• Gaurav Balli
• Lydia Rae
• Oliver Barker
• Rosie Rowell
• Sam Buttery
• Sam Hickman
• Sena Tettey
• Unique

Behind the scenes, the credits are:

• Producer: SJ Watkinson
• DJ: Just Soriah
• Visuals: Katie Price
• Score supervision: Lydia Stephenson
• Outside eye and dramaturgy: Mark Maughan
• Music consultant: CN Lester
• Writing consultant: Joelle Tyler
• Movement direction: Tinovimbanashe Sibana
• Fatt’s costume: Kerfuffle Studio
• Robes: Blu Romantic

Arts Council England funded the project, with support from eight organisations: Fierce Festival, Cambridge Junction, B:Music, Marlborough Productions, Brighton Dome, Factory International, Homotopia and Warwick Arts Centre itself. An earlier research and development phase in 2024 was also Arts Council funded.

Who Fatt Butcher is

The biography supplied with the release describes “an award-winning cabaret artist, vocalist and professional hot mess”. Fatt Butcher won Drag Idol UK in 2022 and performs in queer nightlife and cabaret venues across the UK every week.

The release quotes West End Best Friend calling them “an incredible vocal powerhouse” and The Times calling them “commandingly camp”. It also says trolls on Twitter have described them as accelerating the decline of humanity.

Their venues, the biography says, include Latitude Festival, the Southbank Centre, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern “and, naturally, behind the bins at the back of Birmingham’s Nightingale Club”. Fatt Butcher’s Disco Bingo began as an online show during lockdown, then took up residencies at the Nightingale Club from 2021 to 2022 and at Cambridge’s Town & Gown Theatre from 2022 to 2024. They also created Send in the Clowns, a musical theatre drag revue that began its residency at Birmingham Repertory Theatre before touring.

Recent credits listed in the release include:

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Birmingham Rep
• Stepping Up on Channel 4
• The Voice UK on ITV
• Joe Lycett’s Big Pride Party on Channel 4
• Come Dine With Me: The Professionals on Channel 4

Tickets and what to know before you go

Prices on the event page when we checked on 4 November:

• Standard: £22.50
• Concessions: £20.50
• Under-26s: £13.50
• Groups of 10 or more: one free ticket, through groupbookings@warwick.ac.uk or the box office

Practical details from the arts centre:

• Where: the Studio at Warwick Arts Centre.
• Age guidance: 18+.
• Length: the release gives 75 minutes for the main performance and the event page gives 1 hour 10 minutes, followed by the DJ set.
• Seating: tickets are general admission, with standing and tiered seating on a first come, first served basis. If standing or steps are difficult, the venue advises contacting the box office about seating.
• Content: strong language, loud music, flashing lights and references to sex and substance use. Audience participation is optional.
• Access: both performances are BSL interpreted and captioned.

On the Saturday you can arrive early for Creative Socials: Masks, from 5.15pm to 7.45pm. The session is free. You make an “intergalactic mask or alien headpiece” with the artist Naoibh McNamee, and the venue describes it as “free and relaxed”.

Congregational is part of the arts centre’s HOME season, “a season of work exploring the idea of HOME”.

What it means for you

• Going from Leamington or Warwick? The venue is in Coventry, on the university campus, so allow for the journey and the 7.45pm start. Its address is University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7FD.
• Under 26? You pay £13.50, against £22.50 at the standard price.
• Need a seat? Seating is first come, first served on the night, so speak to the box office before you book.
• Coming with a group? Ten or more people get one free ticket.

For more to do this month, see what’s on in Leamington. Our Once Upon a Time in Sokoto story also covers the arts centre’s British Art Show 10 exhibition and The Gruffalo’s Child.