Episode 78 – The Edges of Drag (TESTO)

Gabrielle Martin : Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I’m Gabrielle Martin, Push’s artistic director, and today’s episode highlights lip sync as an archival practice, mess as vulnerability, and wet as in both emotional and horny.

I’m speaking with Wet Mess, creator of Testo, which is being presented at the Push Festival February 7th to 8th, 2026. In Testo, Wet Mess dives headfirst into the glorious, messy edges of drag, testosterone, transition. It’s a chaotic celebration of bodies in flux, where the magical hides in the mundane and made-up fantasies become real.

Expect dykey desires, mustache meals, and a choreography of guttural sexuality that turns everyday life inside out. Wet Mess from the UK is a wet mess, horny for your confusion. Wet Mess, AKA Insecure White Man, AKA Pussy Prince, revels in the slippery space between humor and vulnerability. Their work invites you to make silly, campy decisions with all the hairy thems and dykey men to embrace desire, absurdity, and the beautiful chaos of becoming.

Here is my conversation with Wet Mess.

So I’m so excited to get into this conversation with you, Wet, and I just want to start by acknowledging that I’m joining this conversation from the stolen ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. And as Testo revels in transition, messy becoming, and the joyful disruption of fixed identities, I want to honor the Indigenous nations whose own knowledges of self, body, and land persist here despite ongoing colonial structures, reminding us that the freedom to shape and reshape who we are is inseparable from struggles for sovereignty and self-determination.

And I invite you to share where you’re joining the call from. 

Wet Mess : Hello, hello. I’m joining from London, UK. Um, thank you for your land acknowledgements. Um, my kind of ancestry is, like, um, mainly British. My mom’s from Essex, my dad’s from Sussex. Um, and I think, yeah, we have a lot to learn from Canada and the way that you do land acknowledgements and very much behind in our, like, um, kind of looking at the colonial history.

So thanks for bringing that to the present. 

Gabrielle Martin : Thanks, Wet. So I want to start talking about Testo right out the gate. So it sits at the charged intersection of drag, transition, and the everyday, where absurdity collapses into sincerity and back again. How did this piece begin for you, and what questions were you asking about masculinity, desire, and becoming as you started shaping the work?

Wet Mess : Yeah. Thanks. Um, the show kind of started as a deep desire to have these conversations that I needed to have around taking testosterone. And so I really just sat down with friends, and then as it grew, people bec- started become- recommending to me, so it was friends of friends who had had experiences taking testosterone, some of them in their 60s identifying as trans men, some of them my age or younger that had been on and off testosterone for different reasons.

Um, and so it was a real, like, spectrum of, like, learning and experiences. Um, and I think I was so hungry for this, um, kind of, like, underground knowledge and, like, DIY, um, hormone, um, taking essentially, because a lot of it, it can be qui- it can be very hard to access hormones on the NHS here. Um, and the stuff I was finding online or at least in the media is very, like, binary, and it’s very, like, um, often based in, like, trauma or ve- a very, like, simple A to B story.

And, um, from my own experience and talking to people, I started to, like, kind of lift the veil on, on the complexities and, and messiness of, of, of transness and, and nonbinary identity and, um, kind of feeling more held in other people sharing their experiences of that. Um, yeah, and I think the show is really a celebration of, like, drag as a tool to discover oneself.

Like, very much for me it was, like, a journey into, um, being able to explore and discover my own gender on stage. And I think, like, um, there’s not many other ways to do that in, like, a celebratory safe space. And so I’m really interested in the queer history of the sta- of the stage as a place of becoming and, um, how, um- The kind of confusing parts of that, like Wet Mess was a drag name, and now I use Wet in every day, and how we like, um, the edges of the stage, ’cause sometimes that is the freest place to be.

Like, you can do things on the stage that you would… that would, would be quite dangerous to do in real life. Um, and, uh, have these fantasies, and people see you in a way that, that you don’t get necessarily. Um, so I think, yeah, the blurry lines between, like, reality, fantasy, storyline, what is real and unreal.

Where is the line of myself and a character, um, feels very, like, um, central to this. 

Gabrielle Martin : It’s a super exciting show, I think because of your incredible drag. Um, and also it’s the integration of the documentary aspect, um, and the way that you’re also, um, pulling in excerpts of interviews and these kind of things I think make for a really kind of unique form that I hadn’t encountered before in terms of, like, how it makes us really reflect on very real issues and issues of transformation and, and also, you know, trans issues.

But also or, and also, um, is this… it’s just this beautiful mix of joyous celebration through drag and, and, and your interpretation of drag. I wanna talk about drag a little bit more actually, ’cause it- Yeah … it becomes a devising tool for you. That’s what I understand, a way of generating choreography, narrative, and character at once.

Can you speak to your process how lip sync, costume, clowning, and physical improvisation converge in the studio? So what does drag open for you that other performance forms don’t? 

Wet Mess : Yeah, so many things. Um, I think just what you were saying there just kind of reminded me as well about, like, lip sync as, and with lip sync, which is integral to drag really, um, as, like, as a queer art form and as an archive.

Like, you’re really choosing the, the, like, uh, the pieces of history, like the oral history that you wanna bring to the la- to bring to stage and bring to the present. So, um, me, the drag queen, who actually, um, is kind of like my mom in a way, like raised me in, in drag, um, she speaks about, um, lip sync being both a museum and a live experience, and you have this, like, this, like, merging of, like, curating and retelling of, like, queer history or, or educating in a, in lots of ways.

Um, and I think I really fell in love with lip sync when I started doing drag, and what I try and do in the show is you have this, this blurring of, like, real voices, which is a bit closer to, like, verbatim theater, and then you have these, like, excerpts from, like, the news or, like, popular culture with people discussing.

You know, we have, like, um, a po- politician and Piers Morgan in it, um, which is quite a common tool of drag where you, like, would, yeah, you rip kind of contemporary culture and put it in, in, in a, in a pop song, and I love how you can mash up, like, um, you can, you can, like, mash, like, high and low art in that way and, like, kind of bring…

Yeah, kind of bring the archive to the present because this, this is what people are is, have, is their experience right now of, of transitioning or questioning transition. Um- But in terms of- Thank 

Gabrielle Martin : you for framing it that way too, because I, yeah, when you frame it that way, it’s like, oh, okay, your work is in conversation with this history of aspects of drag being this archival, like, this form of bringing archival material into the, into the present.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Wet Mess : Yeah. It feels really, like, historical, but then it also feels very, like, now or, like, trying to be very, like, um, choosing to use voices that are, that are speaking now and, like, marking this moment. Um, but in terms of, like, drag as a, like, devising tool or as, like, a, an art form as well, I, I actually studied painting.

Um, and … But I was doing a lot of, like, performing and kind of dancing and, like, with a collective outside of, of uni, um, in, like, ki- site-specific places. Like, we’d perform in, like, um, swimming pools or, um, demolition sites. Like, it was up in, um, Edinburgh and Glasgow where there’s a lot more space to play with, um, and a lot more, like, buildings you can access, um, for free or for cheap.

Um, but I was always, like, felt like these two things were very oppositional, and, like, kind of jumping between them. And then when I found drag, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can just paint my fucking head.” And it felt so liber- Like, I was like, oh my God, I feel this huge liberation of, like … And ’cause I st- It was actually a history of art and fine art, so I’d done five years of studying the history, and this, this, like, almost, like, intimidating male dominating art form of the canvas and the concept.

And I was like, I can just fuck all that off and transform and use makeup, which is such a, like, feminine, it’s very ephemeral, um, type of paint, right? Paint my face and transform. Um, and I think, like, it brought, like, image into, like, aliveness or performance that I was always really craving, and spectacle and campiness.

As, at the same, at the same time of, like, kind of, like, self-discovery in, in a way, um, and being able to, like, yeah, have those questions around, or explorations around gender that didn’t feel, yeah, that would, like- Yeah, joyful. Really joyful 

Gabrielle Martin : I, I wanna know a little bit more about the personas that you build.

So your work revels in slippery identities, you know, in quotation marks, “insecure balding white man,” “pussy prince,” “alien baby.” So yeah, how, how do you build these personas? What does inhabiting these contradictory bodies allow you to say or unsay about gender fantasy and the stories we project onto ourselves?

Wet Mess : Yeah, I think I actually don’t really see them as different personas, and I think maybe that’s part of this, like, um, resistance to, like, a charac- a drag character that some people really feel that they have, and that’s so, so valid as well. But I think, like, I think I’m really interested in, yeah, just the fact that we all have multitudes, and we all hold so many contradictions within ourselves, and have the ability to be good and bad all the time.

I fi- I, I just fi- I find gender, like, endlessly interesting to play with and to, like, watch people play with. Um, and I think… And al- and also, like, fantasy, I, I actually am, kind of feel like I- Tried to play with a lot with, like, go-going, um, which I did more full time, um, before Testo. But, um, recently I did a gig where I, um, dressed up as a stop, a stop sign, like a road stop sign, like a red so I, I made this, like, cardboard, uh, is it like a hexagon?

I’m not sure. Um, and the painted stop on my face. I’m not sure. Yeah. Eventually. Maybe. I don’t know. Like, fully naked in a thong on a bar, and I just love, like, um, spending hours getting into this fantasy and then just, like, going dancing in, like, early hours in a bar and, like, the idea that I could, like…

someone’s night will be, like, remembered by the fact there, like, there was, like, a naked stop sign on the bar. Do you know what I mean? Like, feeding- Yeah … into this, feeding into this scene that kind of raised me, it feels important. 

Gabrielle Martin : Do… is that as much of a part of your practice as performing Testo or other work for the stage?

Wet Mess : Yeah, definitely. I think, like- Mm-hmm … um, kind of like humor and, like, spectacle and joy and just, like, I think, like, a, a real, like, queer history of nightlife and cabaret and drag is so integral to the work that I make, and I think I kind of always want to have a bit of, like, a root in that world. But at the same time, I really feel like it deserve, like, especially at Drag and Lip Sync, deserve, like, a bigger platform and, like, more complex conversation and, like, bringing transness, like, really explicitly together with, with that.

Um, I think I w- I was also qui- being quite limited and restricted by only performing five-minute acts for, like, drunk people, you know? No one’s gonna go and write an essay about that. Um, so yeah, I think, like, I think we can learn so much from both, but I think I do get scared about only being, only being in that world and, like, that may be with my people.

Gabrielle Martin : Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You mentioned, um, I feel like you’ve just been speaking a bit about the intersection of comedy and vulnerability in your work. Um, you know, Testo is full of the messy, uh, awkwardness, eroticism, silliness, revelation. So how do you choreograph that oscillation between comedy and vulnerability?

Wet Mess : Yeah. I think both of those things feel really important to my work. I think that, um, you- we really need so much vulnerability in, in any show to make it good or at least for an audience to feel that gorgeous feeling of relating and to understanding, and maybe even if it’s not something you’ve experienced, when you can really see that something is true for someone, that you can connect on another level.

Um, and I think in a way, like, my name kind of speaks to that, like- When I first named myself, I was like, I wanna make work that, um, it makes me emotional and makes me horny, or explore things that make me emotional and horny. And both those words kind of do that, like wet, wet of the eyes, wet of the crotch, mess of the emotions, mess on stage, like mess as vulnerability, um, trying to like, um, embrace these sides of ourselves and put them on stages rather than hide them.

Um, and I think, yeah, and also in, in, in other sense for comedy, like, again, it can be kind of disregarded as, like, not something… Like, you don’t necessarily see it in, like, live art theater worlds, or it can be, like, look, slightly looked down upon. But I think, like, really, like, bringing that with me. There’s so many different ways, reasons we laugh, like out of awkwardness, out of disgust, out of desire, and, like, I think I’m so interested to keep that present in the work.

And people, I think people are hungry to be entertained. They’re hungry to, like, see spectacles and, um, you know, revel in it. 

Gabrielle Martin : Working through drag, transition, and the beautiful chaotic edges of identity, what did making Testo reveal to you, or did it reveal something to you about your relationship to masculinity, uh, about the emotional logic of the work, or about the kinds of transformation performance can make possible?

Wet Mess : Hmm. Yeah, I think, um, it definitely reveals a lot. I mean, I think the whole process of it was very much like a, a, well, a, a learning and, um, a kind of becoming and- I had a lot of, like, imposter syndrome about, about when I started, which I don’t really feel so much now and, and like, um Uh, yeah, just like a under– I think like a lot of the conversations, um, well it’s amazing when you call something art and you put a, a, a, um, recording device down how conversation can get so deep, um, and so much more than my everyday life.

And I think people are really, um, hungry to connect and to share their stories. There can be so much fear. There is a lot of fear around transition and around asking people about transition, and I think for trans people, non-binary people, it’s their everyday lives and they, uh, want- they’re inter- they wanna share and they wanna, um, kind of connect in that way.

So that was really beautiful, and I think like, yeah, understanding more about other people’s confusion and messiness really, like, helped me feel validated in myself. Um, I guess it can feel quite lonely maybe. Um, and I hope that that’s an, an experience… And I, and I know it has been for, for some of the audience as well.

Um, and then I think I learned a lot as well about, like, I mean, the research I was doing that not, I don’t know necessarily is, like, that clear in the show ’cause it is m- primarily, like, movement, but about, like, just the cultural narratives that have been, like, forced onto this hormone and this, this, like, hor- which we, we know, we know and we call as kind of the male hormone, and how it’s really not binary in and of itself, which is, like, kind of amazing and, uh, funny that, I mean, this is just, like, s- science, the science world that has created this as well.

But, like, you know, we all know that, like, when you have too much testosterone it converts to estrogen. Like, testosterone is really important in, like, pregnancy for example, and the, the var, var, the variations of the hormone within people is, like, so vast and, like, different. Um, so yeah, I think I learned a lot about, about that.

And, um, I actually, I started the show thinking I was gonna interview cis people who had also been on HRT, um, and I interviewed this kind of amazing, um, actually an interpreter that I worked with, and she, um, well she had a mastectomy and she also went on HRT because of cancer, and she actually changed her name but that, not for gender reasons.

So she kind of has this amazing… And she has a lot of trans friends as well, and she kind of talk- c- calls herself, like, trans adjacent. Um, and I was really interested in, yeah, these parallels and I think, I mean, it’s, a lot of people know this but yeah, how easy it is to access hormones when it’s, um, a cis person.

Um, but again, uh, but I actually moved away from it because it was kind of becoming this, like, educational show. And I was like, ultimately I don’t wanna be educating an au- like, I wanted to make this show for trans people, and I kind of took a lot of the kind of trauma-y stuff out and was like, let me make it this kind of poetic abstract, abstract place that’s more about feeling and body and, um

So that was an interesting journey to go on for myself as well and like learning about how, what work I wanna make and, and who it’s for, ’cause I think, um, yeah, it really changes what you wanna make. 

Gabrielle Martin : And it can still be a bit educational. It 

Wet Mess : can still be educational, yeah. Like, 

Gabrielle Martin : I, I was educated. Yeah, I think- Depending on who you are in the, in the space, you know?

Yeah. And I, 

Wet Mess : and I 

Gabrielle Martin : want- Both entertaining and educational. 

Wet Mess : That’s great. That’s great. I think I wanted it, instead of it to be like, um, confronting or like, “You don’t know this,” it’s like you’re, I’m just gonna assume you’re, you’re on the train, and you’re, you’re welcome on the train, and if you don’t know, you’re gonna go home and you’re gonna do your own research if you need to do that, you know?

Like, um, that kind of space. 

Gabrielle Martin : What is next for you, Wet? Are you working on another show or are you focusing on your go-go, um, costumes, uh, painting? What’s, what is your focus right now beyond Testo? 

Wet Mess : Yeah, I’m always, I’m always, I’m always focusing on the, on the go-going. Um, and I actually do… I, I… The cabarets I do do now are more for, like, um, different people’s fundraisers, like, which is nice, like top surgery fundraisers and stuff.

Um, but yeah, I am working on a group show, which is, like, s- actually beginning next week with one other collaborator. Um, so yeah, very early seeds, but I’m really excited to be kind of like I’ve got a lot more… Yeah, I’ve got some creative juice to, to let go of. 

Gabrielle Martin : Okay, awesome, something to follow for sure. And I think what’s so special is not only that at Push we’ll get to host Testo, but also your workshop, um, Drag and Devising with Terra Cheyenne and supported by SFU.

It’s really gonna be an amazing opportunity for some local folks to learn a little bit more about your practice and get to do themselves. So yeah, thank you so much. I’m really excited to have you here. And also, I should mention that since you were here at the last Push at the Industry Series and you performed a s- short excerpt, uh, as part of the pitch, anybody who was in the room is still talking about that.

So- Oh. … everybody’s wait, awaiting your return. Oh, 

Wet Mess : no. Long-awaited 

Gabrielle Martin : return. 

Wet Mess : Oh, yeah, I’m so excited to be back. I really am. And it’ll be really gorgeous to, like, get to know some people more in the workshop, ’cause I always feel like that’s such a nice conne- connecting space. 

Gabrielle Martin : Great. Thanks so much. 

Wet Mess : Gorgeous. Thank you.