Yoz Mensch on My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram: 'It's sort of a not coming-out story'
Adelaide performer Yoz Mensch chats to Jo Laidlaw about the epic adventure that inspired their latest show and the pain of hiding your true self from the people you love
Tell us about your new show, My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram: A Guide To Trans-generational Road-tripping. This show began while I was on this road trip with my grandfather, which was very weird and funny. I thought ‘I need to tell everyone about this,’ then slowly realised it was actually about being in the closet while travelling with a loved one: how do you hold both versions of yourself for such a sustained period of time, in such intimate conditions?
Where did you go? We went the whole length of the UK. My grandfather drove from Bournemouth to Rogart [a tiny village in the far north of Scotland], where my grandmother’s ashes are. Her name was Joy, so there is this element of looking for joy, as well as seeking queer joy, within the confines of the quite restricting circumstances I was in: some moments where I could feel like myself. And because those moments were so small, they needed to be really concentrated to get through to the next opportunity.
That was a long trip on some not great roads. There was a bit of him looking at a six-hour driving day and saying, ‘oh, that’s nothing.’ We did things like drive from the Lake District to Oban in one day which was a wild, wild day. As we drove into Oban, it started bucketing down and it was awful.
Of course it did. Was it intense? There were tense moments, but that maybe comes from anyone sitting next to anyone making annoying mouth noises. But again, so much joy just exploded out of nowhere, like when you build in-jokes with the person you've spent two weeks with and know a certain phrase will make both of you laugh because it's tied to a place and a memory.
Were you still closeted by the end of the trip? To him I was, yeah. It's sort of a not coming-out story. He’ll know when he sees the show. I don't know why I'm doing it this way, but it's fun and dramatic. I hope it can deliver the message to him in a way that shows how much love I have for him. I didn’t tell him not because I think he’s a bad guy; for some reason, telling the world is easier than telling your closest loved ones.
This feels very different to your previous show, No Babies In The Sauna. It’s a precise show. No Babies was loosey-goosey and sort of feeling the room, but this is very intentional. Every single person will see the same show, because I've not done that in a long time and I want to show that I can. We include the Instagram stories and posts I made during the trip too.
I feel so lucky to be able to make a show like this, after a decade of making Fringe shows in Adelaide. I've been very lucky to receive a residency and grant from The Mill and Fringe, which gave me the space to do it. The Mill have a loyal audience base that come and see the work, there are 70 artists’ studios there, so it feels like you’re in the heart of the arts community just walking into the kitchen. It feels like I’m in the right spot, doing the right stuff.
The right spot being Oban? Not Oban, Jo. Never again.
My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram: A Guide To Trans-generational Road-tripping, The Mill, 19–21, 25–28 February, 1, 4, 7 March, times vary.