A shining, joyful light born from Melbourne’s second lockdown, POPGAYS is the colourful, sharp creation of Victorian comedians Aurelia St Claire, Charlie Zangel, and Jordan Barr. Coming together each week to slide a queer lens over pop culture and share their experiences navigating the world as queer performers, they take on everything from Britney Spears conspiracies to racism in the Australian theatre community with a natural wit and camaraderie that has you immersed in every moment.
Speaking about the genesis of the podcast, Charlie explains the natural harmony between the trio that paints the episodes with life and humour.
“We all got invited this year to perform at a queer conference. So, it was the three of us and I think that was the first time that we’d been on the same lineup in that kind of way before. I know for me that was a sparking moment of ‘oh we’ve got a cool chemistry; this could be something.’ The idea of having three unique, queer perspectives was exciting.”
Jordan adds,
“It’s interesting because we mostly see each other at gigs and so most of our conversations are about the gig or comedy. We hadn’t actually hung out, so part of the podcast is very much finding out each other’s stories. We’ve all kind of fumbled our way through queerness in different ways but there’s also so many similarities.”
As referential as it is intelligent, POPGAYS walks a well-balanced tightrope of humour, solemnity and humanity, never shying away from any topic that captures their attention.
Jordan explains;
“I think probably the reason we all enjoy doing this together is because – our comedy as well – dips in and out of the darker side of things and tries to find the light in life. It feels natural to talk about the Free Britney movement and then the gender binary expectations growing up. It feels like it flows really natural.”
Charlie furthers that thought,
“I think it’s why we’re attracted to each other as performers. We want to work with people that care about the same things as us and see the light in things we see the light in. I’ve really thoroughly enjoyed the social element of hanging out with these two and getting to know each other beyond the face that we put to the world. As stand-ups you get a very short amount of time to present yourself and you put on this very composed façade that you want to present to the world but in podcast form, we can really get deeper than that and talk about our vulnerabilities.”
POPGAYS creates an interesting dialogue that is different to what the three hosts are used to. All comedy performers, the podcast has offered them a different presentation to what they’re used to on stage. Aurelia explains,
“Things just end up being funny, we don’t go into it expecting 'X' amount of laughs. It’s different when you’re writing a set, you can’t talk about that serious thing and keep it serious for five minutes. We can really do that on the podcast, there’s no pressure make people laugh and once we cover that serious topic, we can move on to whatever hilarious thing happened that week.”
Despite members of the queer community often being the creative force behind a lot of pop culture's best moments, it still feels rare and untrod territory to see it analysed and dissected through a queer gaze. POPGAYS offers a perspective that some listeners may not have ever considered before, and it feels immensely important to be privy to these perceptions and experiences. Charlie explained it best,
“It seems really natural for me that queer people should be commentators on pop culture, because they’re often the creators of pop culture. We see heightened laughs in it all.”
- You can find POPGAYS here, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday.