MY INSPIRATION: Matt Miller – Fixing

Written by theatre maker and performer Matt Miller, and co-created with artist and director Peader Kirk, Fixing is a show about family breakups and trying to make things better, about learning car maintenance and choosing the right shade of lipstick to do it in. Coming to Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle from Tuesday 5^th-Saturday 23^rd November, Fixing seeks to initiate conversations around care, nurture, rupture and recovery.

Here, Matt talks about their inspiration behind the production.

When I was little, around 8 years old, my dad had a classic car – a Sunbeam Talbot 90 Mark 2 – and dreams that when I was older I might take it on as a project and do it up. I never did. Now in my 30s I’ve been thinking a lot about parenthood, and Fixing is a show about my relationship with my dad. I tell stories of my memories of him then, just after him and my mum divorced, and where we sit with each other now.

It’s also a drag show, with my drag alter-ego Natalie Spanner making regular appearances to talk the audience through a car maintenance class focused around ‘Holistic Car Care’ – looking after cars but also ourselves.

Natalie has been great fun to create. With every show I make with co-creator Peader Kirk, I go about learning a new performance skill. For our previous show Fitting, for instance, I learned stage magic skills. With Fixing this is my first time properly exploring the world of drag. It’s such a huge and exciting performance world and I’ve been pulling influences from different points on that spectrum to find Natalie’s unique voice and movement. From artier queens like Sasha Velour to the more knowingly chaotic energy of Christeene via the classic dry but caring cut of Lily Savage, I’ve been soaking in videos of performances and interviews to find where Natalie Spanner sits. She cares deeply about people being the best they can be, but is flawed herself. She’s bubbly, bouncy and just a little scatty. Her head works at a thousand miles an hour and it’s been a beautiful experience to dive into that.

I’d also say that all of my shows deliberately try to collide completely different ways of being, and that’s what I’m exploring with Natalie too. I’m in and out of drag throughout the show, presenting as both her and myself, and blending the two to ask questions about self-presentation and how we might find different versions of ourselves within ourselves to build a wider experience of existing in the world.

With all of my shows, I want to find ways to make the narrative broader than my own stories and Natalie is a way of doing that. I’ve been going to garages to learn how to fix cars, and talking to psychotherapist Graham Music about the ways in which people react to difficult life events, and ways to ‘re-spark’ and start up again afterwards. Natalie blends those elements and has become both a mechanic and a self-care advocate, caring for the audience as we ask, ‘what does it mean to fix things?’ Be it cars, or personal relationships.

I hope the show has some genuinely useful advice on car maintenance but let’s you reflect on where you sit with those close to you too, and to maintain connection.