Haunted & If These Wigs Could Talk

THISISPOPBABY & The Abbey Theatre present

If These Wigs Could Talkby Panti Bliss
If These Wigs Could Talkmeets Panti, a drag queen at fifty-three, after a lifetime of showbiz, shenanigans and making a show of herself, taking this moment to question what her purpose and place in the world is now. Via salacious stories, impassioned polemics, some seriously funny soul searching and a few unvarnished truths, Panti takes us from rural Mayo to London’s glittering West End to the Ambassador’s residence in Vienna where, along the way, the answer to the question presents itself when she least expects it. Panti warmly invites you to learn from her mistakes, laugh at her failures and revel in her triumphs.

Hauntedby Tara Flynn
What happens when you hit the floor and lose all of your marbles? Ask Tara Flynn: a fame-adjacent actor turned advocate for the campaign to Repeal Ireland’s Eighth Amendment. The country voted Yes and the whirlwind of publicity and abuse came to an end, and crashing to the floor is where Tara found herself. Down there, she realised the whirlwind had conveniently kept her from dealing with the death of her dad.

This is one woman’s journey back from the floor. A funny, moving tale of grief, campaigning for civil rights, the offline impact of online abuse, crashing to the ground and fighting to tell your own story.

Dr Panti Bliss is Ireland’s foremost ’gender discombobulist’ and ’accidental activist’. She began performing whilst an art student in the late 80s before moving to Tokyo and becoming a fixture on the Tokyo club scene. Returning to Dublin in 1995 she ran some of Dublin’s seminal club nights, hosted the legendary Alternative Miss Ireland for eighteen years, and performed all over the world. Panti has written and performed three critically acclaimed, hit theatre shows: In These Shoes, All Dolled Up and A Woman in Progress. In 2013, All Dolled Up: Restitched, a reimagining of her three hit shows had a sold out run at the Abbey Theatre and toured Australia. Panti was the forerunner in Ireland’s ’Yes’ campaign for gay marriage and on February 2015 took to the stage of the National Theatre with a ten minute oration that has been compared to some of the great speeches in the English language and a video of the speech went viral online, was broadcast on TV and radio around the world, and became an international sensation. It was also put to music by pop royalty, Pet Shop Boys. In October 2014, Hachette Books published Panti’s memoir, A Woman in the Making. Her documentary, QueenofIreland, was released in 2015. Panti has recently been touring the USA and Australia.

Tara Flynn is an actor, writer and character comedian. She’s also one of Ireland’s leading female voiceover artists, an improviser and newspaper columnist.