Stage

The cellist, the comedian and the drag queen: doors open for the viral stars of lockdown

Musician Patrick Dexter, comedian Shane Daniel Byrne and drag queen Ariana Grindr are enjoying a post-pandemic boom

Patrick Dexter

Chris McCormack
Tue Feb 7 2023 - 05:00

The mountains in Mayo have long been of fascination – whether to the prehistoric builders of monuments on Croagh Patrick or to the authors of the Ulster Cycle who sent Queen Medb’s army through these gorges. What picturesque landscapes.

“There’s been a lot of incorrect doxxing by journalists,” says cellist Patrick Dexter, whose backyard view includes a mountain range so striking that commentators have been trying to identify it, at the risk of exposing the location of his home. Many will recognise the scene. In summer 2020, Dexter became one of those popular artists whose online performances helped counteract feelings of despair during lockdown. He posted videos on Twitter and TikTok showing him outside his splendidly whitewashed cottage, performing some classical standards – though a preference for Irish folk songs revealed itself.

That genre speaks in this visual language: near-otherworldly locations; artists dressed in impressive knitwear (which Dexter’s wardrobe provides). Swap out the cello for an acoustic guitar or some uilleann pipes and you’d have a mise-en-scène familiar to folk music. Instead, his music videos seem to juxtapose images that are disconnected, inducing a kind of dream state where Ireland’s folksong past is being relayed via an instrument invented in Renaissance Italy.

This was never the plan. Dexter grew up in a family that plays classical music, and he toured with alt-pop band Heathers. He eventually decided not to make a living as a performer: “I decided that life as a professional artist didn’t fit with how I wanted to live. I understood that wasn’t the world I wanted to be a part of.” The music videos began as something to send to friends during the delirium of lockdown, who encouraged him to publish them on social media. One day, he posted a sun-dabbled video of himself performing Canon in D, one of the most stirringly familiar classical melodies, and then went for a swim. Afterwards, he noticed that the views on the post had gone stratospheric.

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In artists’ stories about breakout success during lockdown, that seems to be a standout memory: smartphones beeping with notifications the first time a streamed performance goes viral. The comic Shane Daniel Byrne had begun posting video sketches on Instagram that addressed the startling transition to lockdown in humorous ways, when he made a satirical video about an anti-lockdown protester. Byrne was seen sitting in a car, playing a narcissistic salon owner who is broadcasting to their followers, and extolling their personal and professional lives (“I am a mother”; “I am a small-business owner”) as if that made them better qualified than public health experts.

“I saw a lot of people who ran salons saying they want to keep their business open for mental health reasons. I get that it makes you feel good, but I don’t think it’s fair to crowbar in mental health. Suddenly, the video was watched 100,000 times,” says Byrne.

The comic was already familiar to some for his enjoyably flip roles in plays made by his company Theatreclub, but by 2019 he was transitioning into stand-up comedy. “Maeve Higgins said something once about making your comedy as close to yourself as possible. A lot of those gigs at the start were about being new in comedy, and what it is like being a queer person in a straight male environment,” he says. One restyle brought on by lockdown was that he began writing outside himself, and to create characters such as the salon owner – something he hadn’t incorporated into his comedy before. (He even had a costume wardrobe when he discovered a box of wigs owned by his boyfriend.)

Like other artists who caught people’s attention during the pandemic, Byrne has spent the past year – since the last lockdown ended in January 2022 – adapting to performing in person. He thinks the popularity he experienced during the pandemic has allowed things to happen much more quickly.

Instead of spending time piecing together a routine by trying out material at open mic nights, he suddenly had a full-length slot at Liberty Hall in Dublin. He performed at the Paddy Power Comedy Festival at the Iveagh Gardens, where there was a noticeable presence by other comics with large followings gained from social media videos, such as Peter Burke and Michael Fry. (“There was talk from people: ‘The online guys are coming in here,’ ” he says). He has presented TV shorts for RTÉ Player, and been a support act for surrealist David O’Doherty.

That sounds like a dizzying period, as if an artist were in the exciting thrall of their own discoveries – of learning what they are capable of achieving. Neville Bradley jnr also describes an energetic year. He is best known by his drag queen creation Ariana Grindr, whose popular DJ set every Friday night in queer venue Pantibar has a pop-bright intensity. Ariana might not have seemed as luminous before the pandemic. Her weekly appearance at the venue had been at a Sunday evening bingo show where she served snacks and learned how to DJ. “I was just the popcorn b*tch playing music,” says Bradley jnr.

The greatest coup was securing a guest appearance from Melissa Joan Hart, the star of 1990s sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch, who appears in a pre-recorded message wishing Ariana luck as if she were competing in a children’s talent show

In summer 2020, drag queens Victoria Secret and Davina Devine hosted Queen of Captivity: a weekly streamed drag pageant featuring 60 contestants who performed from their locked-down homes. Bradley jnr decided to compete, and some were surprised by the elaborate structures of his performances. After one number stretched to seven minutes, the judges introduced a three-minute cap.

For the finale, he crafted a lip-sync themed around a magic show, with Ariana trying on different witches, from a love potion-sniffing Hermione Grainger to a levitating Elphaba. The greatest coup, however, was securing a guest appearance from Melissa Joan Hart, the star of 1990s sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch, who appears in a pre-recorded message wishing Ariana luck as if she were competing in a children’s talent show. (The LGBTQ+ community has occasionally been hesitant to warm to Hart due to her support for the Republican Party. When Bradley jnr reached out to her on the video-sharing website Cameo, he was light on details about the kind of competition he was performing in).

Ariana Grindr. Photograph: Syra Sparkle

The electrifying performance crowned Bradley jnr the winner of Queen of Captivity. He explains that the victory left him elated, partially because of the difficult few months that come before. “At the start of the pandemic, my mam was undergoing aggressive treatment for breast cancer. She was high risk, so I didn’t leave the house,” he says. In the finale, she had been off-camera, shaking out Elphaba’s long-flowing black robe to give the impression Bradley jnr was flying.

The win also sealed his profile in the Irish drag scene, something that contrasts with a low point a few years ago when, while trudging through London’s theatre industry, he dropped unconscious in a nightclub where he was bartending. “I was going from college to rehearsals to work, and I hadn’t slept. I had an agent showcase the next day. The next thing I know I was on the ground. An ambulance took me to the hospital,” he says. The events of the past year sound like a joyous reversal of fortunes. Once restrictions were lifted, Pantibar invited him to DJ at the popular weekend slot: the Friday Night Grind. He satirised alt-right journalists in the cabaret-play Platforms, and has been pushing himself into new zones such as stand-up comedy. He has also recorded pop songs, and recently released a comic video for the spiky single I Know Who You Did Last Christmas.

Not everyone had been longing for the breakout success they experienced during lockdown. Dexter is still grappling with the attention focused on him: “I assumed I would put this to rest and go back to teaching music. I got a lot of requests to perform live, and it was a quick realisation that this online project can transform into something with a physical audience.” Among his upcoming in-person performances is a tour with the Irish Embassy in Brazil. He has released a version of Auld Lang Syne as part of an upcoming EP, the tracklist of which will possibly inform his set list.

He is aware that his in-person concert cannot incorporate one strength of his music videos: the sweeping, mountainous landscape. Instead, he will have to innovate again. The making and thinking of art is something that endures, whether in lockdown or not. It’s as old as the hills.

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