THE hot topic of gender fluidity comes to Langford’s Museum of Power in a show by Alice d’Lumiere next week.

The performance artist will present ‘Speaking Out and Fitting In!’ as well as staging a workshop to accompany the show next month.

Alice – also known as Darren Gooding – is a performer who grew up in Colchester.

She is a regular contributor to the East Anglian arts scene with a long-standing creative relationship with Colchester Arts Centre.

Alice says she generally prefers to go unnoticed and just wants to be an ordinary person on the train or in the supermarket. She’s usually happy to be an anonymous, sensible, middle-aged woman.

But Alice is also a poet, actress and performance artist, and “cursed with an occasional but irresistible desire to speak up, stand out and be the centre of attention”.

Alice said: “This is a new work in verse and prose, with flashes of cabaret and burlesque, in which I playfully explore the wonderful, if occasionally counter-intuitive, position of the transgender or gender fluid individual striving to both fit in to another gender whilst at the same time yearning to establish a unique, personal voice for themselves.

“In 2018, I was asked to loan one of my performance dresses to Colchester’s Hollytrees Museum, a privilege I thought was reserved for the deceased and royalty!

“I then ended the year performing in public as a live Christmas fairy.

“This is a show about how delightfully queer life can be when you decide to step beyond your birth gender.”

The show is accompanied by a spoken word workshop looking at the experience of finding your voice in verse and prose.

Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start on Saturday, March 30. Tickets are £15 (£12 concessions). The spoken word workshop is on Saturday, April 13 from 11am to 1pm and costs £7.50. For details, visit museumofpower.org.uk or call 01621 843183.