I always thought my mum was at her most beautiful when she was crying...

The bits that look like chocolate sprinkles are supposed to be spiky little pubes, as though she’s had a Brazilian wax but then let it grow out until it’s scratchy and beardy,” says Scottee. “I’m a faggot though; I’ve been dating a male illustrator for five years, and haven’t seen real-life lady parts since I was 16, so it might not be an accurate depiction.”

Scottee’s chatting about a woollen vagina he’s sewing, the latest product of an embroidery hobby he took up because he “likes the idea of keeping a threatened female craft alive, plus it keeps my hands busy while my ass is parked in front of EastEnders.”

As a so-hot-right-now experimental performance artist, DJ, host of what he calls “art-fash club bash” events, and omnipresent London gay scenester, the 24-year-old is at the centre of one of the capital’s most creative social circles – but one that can also be hideously self-indulgent, catty and pretentious. You might expect Scottee to be a hyped-up, cocky nitwit. Instead, he’s a witty knitter, who’s likeable and surprisingly down to earth.

POP ART

When trying to describe Scottee, you may be tempted to compare him to the late Leigh Bowery – the performance artist, designer, 1980s alt.club legend and inspiration behind Boy George’s musical Taboo. After all, there are strong echoes of Leigh’s ‘Birth Show’ – where he pretended to give birth to his friend and future wife Nicola Bateman – in Scottee’s ‘Diet Coke’, where he plays a downtrodden middle-aged woman who pops out a Coca-Cola child. But Scottee has his own stories and ideas, and protests that “any fat guy who likes to wear make-up and a vaguely spherical outft is bound to get compared to Leigh – it’s a compliment, but also a lazy comparison”.

“I always formulate my acts by picking a vivid memory or an image that’s had a strong impact upon me, then extrapolating it by asking ‘Now, what would happen if…?’,” Scottee explains. “During the 1990s, there was a TV advert where these women in an office would take a ‘Diet Coke break’ to perv at a builder taking his top off outside. I found it homoerotic – the guy was gorge! I wondered what’d happen if the dumpiest lass in the company managed to somehow hump this hunk, then got pregnant with his Diet Coke baby.”

Dressed in Deirdre Barlow specs, a mousy brown NHS wig bought from a secret hospital source (and intended for a child with leukaemia), plus chintz trousers complete with an unzippable womb, ‘Diet Coke’ sees Scottee going into labour in front of the audience. Eventually, he pushes a two litre bottle of beverage out through his floral Laura Ashley labia, then tears off a ‘pearl’ earring – made from Mentos – and sticks the mints in the drink. The reaction makes the liquid froth, and Scottee’s newborn baby explodes all over himself and the crowd.

From carbonated, annihilated children to bursting bolognese boobs, Scottee’s ‘Lady In Red’ act sees him becoming a busty secretary. Tired of colleagues talking only to her chest and valuing her solely for her body, she decides to use scissors to chop off her breasts – made from plastic pouches filled with tomato pasta sauce.

“This character’s based on someone I only got a fleeting glimpse of, but who I’ve never been able to forget,” Scottee says. “It was a lady slumped against the entrance of a bar bawling her eyes out while her work Christmas party continued inside, with red wine all down her white shirt, pockets full of stationary, and a ratty bit of tinsel round her neck.

When you see a woman blubbering in the street, it sort of feels like art – it’s so raw and real and such a contrast to everyone else around who’s keeping their shit rigidly together and their regulation ‘public face’ in place. Weeping women are fabulous. This sounds quite dark, but I always thought my mum was at her most beautiful when she was crying – mascara and kohl smeared down her face, sobbing along to Lisa Stansfield songs.”

KEEPING MUM

Scottee’s mum cried a lot. She might still cry a lot now, but Scottee doesn’t have a clue; he hasn’t spoken to her for three years. “Gay men are supposed to have a special affinity with their mothers, but I had to cut ties with mine to preserve my own mental health,” he begins. “I grew up on an estate in north London, home to the Camden Boyz gang, who left a man brain damaged during a fight with concrete slabs, baseball bats and knives in 2005. It’s the kind of area where violence is so commonplace that no-one comments on it.

“My parents fought tooth and nail. At age 12 I discovered the man I lived with wasn’t my real dad, and spent years asking about my biological father – but my parents refused to tell me more than ‘he’s Greek’. I was frustrated that they withheld information I felt I had a right to know; I was permanently shaky and fractious, worrying about their behaviour. I began to meddle with substances, alcohol and bingeing to cope with how stressed they made me. I couldn’t do it any more. To keep my sanity, I consciously stopped having a relationship with my folks, and my life changed. An enormous deadweight was lifted.”

Before making this decision, still trapped at home, the teenage Scottee used to find relief by escaping on the number 24 bus to a youth theatre group. He soon landed small roles in The Bill, and also worked as a stunt double in a Harry Potter film aged 16: “It was more boring than it sounds, unfortunately; most of the time I was just standing in as the back of a Hogwarts student’s head.”

These dull days put Scottee off movies, so the young thesp moved onto fringe theatre instead – but that was also a disappointment, “full of ‘conceptual’ buffoons pretending to push themselves over while philosophising about apples” – so he joined a community arts group called Spare Tyre Theatre Company.

“I collaborated with a group of elderly people to produce a musical all about their lives in the 1930s and 40s, called ‘Same Meat Different Gravy,’” Scottee enthuses. “Off the back of that, the government hired us to put together anti-ageism training packages for carers who deal with older people. I discovered how much I loved performing pieces that had a political slant to them, pushed boundaries, or offered a social commentary, and this philosophy continues in the work I do today.

However, when Spare Tyre put a project together to tackle homophobia in educational establishments, but only garnered interest from a pathetic two schools, I became disillusioned again. I quit mainstream acting companies altogether and hit the gay and fashion-forward club scene hard.

I worked – and networked – like a motherf--ker, got a name for myself as part of several influential party-organising crews – including Kashpoint, Popstarz, Foreign, Yr Mum Ya Dad, and more – then began to introduce myself as a solo performance artist against a background of avant garde nightlife. Now I make a living rolling around in my own vulgarity, vanity and vomit!”

REGURGI-TATE MODERN

Vomit features heavily in ‘Love Sick’. Scottee wears a white cummerbund that unfolds to become a long tablecloth, one end fastened round his waist and the other held by members of the audience. He then chucks up a blend of Ribena mixed with salt. The nauseatingly sweet blackcurrant-and-bile scented sick runs down the cloth towards onlookers. It’s difficult to watch without retching – but then many of Scottee’s acts aim to make gig-goers gag.

“I’ve had lots of people throw up during ‘Lady In Red’, because the pasta sauce smells so bad under the hot stage lights,” he cackles. “I also did a spoof gore musical with drag queen and Bizarre Ball star Jonny Woo titled ‘Texas Chainsaw Mascara’. My Leatherface-style character was called Imperial Leather, and spent a lot of time pretending to run after victims on a treadmill.

I didn’t wash my costume, and delighted in seeing how repulsed the crowd were when I thrust the sweat-drenched fabric in their faces. I’m obsessed with being grotesque like that. I like breaking taboos, and it’s taboo to be utterly, disgustingly horrible and messy. Then again, there can also be something quite cute about mess, like when kids get chocolate smeared all over their faces. It’s foul and endearing at the same time.”

Scottee’s work is rife with references to weight. But he sees his size as a tool he can use to his advantage, and frequently strips off on stage: “After a decade of diets and doldrums I had a revelation when I was 18, and realised that other people are more afraid and shocked by seeing my body than I am. The fact that I’m now comfortable with something that still makes them feel awkward gives me power and authority over them.

But my acts aren’t only about being fat. I use my gut as a prop, yes, but I go much further than that. Getting my stomach out is only one small part of a creative, varied show; it’s not the sole big reveal. Not like a damned tassel twirl…”

NOT HIS CUP OF TEASE…

Aha. Burlesque. A subject Scottee holds more venom for than a pit full of pissed-off pythons. While he’s got plenty of time for inventive performers such as Syban V and thinks Immodesty Blaize is “one of the most charismatic women I’ve ever met, who lives and breathes her art 24/7, and makes a striptease look like ballet”, he slates most burlesque as unoriginal and exploitative.

“People such as (burlesque promoter) Chaz Royal and (blogger and teacher) Jo King should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating the dangerous cult that is the churn-’em-out burlesque factory, and encouraging mediocre, middle-of-the-road acts,” he sneers. “They’ve taught your average Jenny who works at the Halifax that the way to feel more confident about her cellulite and validate her existence is to slap on some Ann Summers nipple covers and get her tits out for the lads. It’s not empowering and feminist – it’s backwards, it’s misogynistic, and it’s hellishly boring. It’s fine to use your body in performance, but give yourself the respect of developing a different and innovative routine, and don’t sell yourself short by relying on the salivating perverts in the front row to make you feel you’re worth something.”

Anything else that gets Scottee’s goat? “Gay men who’re too willing to be stereotyped as pink-loving, shopping-addicted, flapping idiots; I’m not happy to be pigeonholed because of my sexuality and I don’t appreciate those who encourage it,” he spits.

“I also can’t stand lip-synching tranny performers getting lyrics wrong. For Christ’s sake, they don’t have to write the words – just remember them! To make my point, I made a video called LipSync Swim, where I did synchronised swimming in a bath full of water while wearing a peg on my nose singing The Supremes’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. And I didn’t get a single line wrong.” Scottee’s new show, ‘Tenor Ladies’, will be making a splash this summer.

Find out more at Scottee.co.uk