Wet Mess: TESTO – Battersea Arts Centre, London

If you have been out on the queer scene in recent years you almost certainly have heard of Wet Mess whose performances have taken the drag scene by storm but, hitting Edinburgh at last summer’s festival, that buzz has leaped out of the queer spaces and into the mainstream. Here at the Battersea Arts Centre they have started their London run of their latest performance TESTO.

The clue to the performance is in the title. At first, an LED message sign tells the audience a poetic dream as slowly the iconic chequered painted face of Wet Mess appears through a rocky-looking fabric backdrop. The tempo raises to a beat and the crowd roars and whoops. This feels like the place to be in London right now.

Wet Mess seemingly laps up the audience’s attention and strips to the waist revealing their toned manly torso, dancing to the beats and revelling in the adoration. From here on in there are spoilers. The fact that the audience appears to be mainly queer women is a clue there is more to Wet Mess than meets the eye. There must be a reason this crowd loves this ripped performer. It all appears quite discombobulating.

The eye moves to the muscular chest, for Wet Mess invites the audience to adulate them, no scars are visible, confusion. The only hint is lines around the biceps if you know what you are looking for. In a dip in the music, Wet Mess pulls at their stomach skin, stretching it, it stretches? They pull their ripped stomach over their legs and that muscular chest surreally over their head then shred their skin like a caterpillar emerging from its chrysalis revealing their natural female torso. The audience goes wild.

There is so much to admire in this performance. Wet Mess mimes to interviews with trans people, some harrowing, some funny and some mundane. But this is Wet Mess, the stories do not stop there. There are phallic references, what it means to be a man, thus a woman, an exploration of gender and the blurred lines between drag and being transgender.

This is Berlinesque at its best, its heyday. This is spine-chillingly exciting and fresh. This is the ticket to have in London right now, but you won’t get one because, rightly, it is sold out.

Runs until 22 February 2025