At the end of January 2020, Bolton-born performer Joe Leather was working on a show in Shanghai when he decided to come back to the UK for a couple of weeks. Little did he know that the pandemic would lead to that fortnight’s holiday becoming a little more permanent than imagined.
Without a job back home - and clubs, bars and theatres all shut due to social distancing measures - Joe, 33, decided to look for something else. Realising that refuse loading would still be a thing during the pandemic, he applied for a position in Crewe near his dad’s house and got the job.
“I’ve always been a performer but during Covid, I had to find something else to do,” Joe tells the M.E.N. “I ended up moving to my dad’s in Crewe and I was trying to get a job and earn some money. I was trying to apply for loads of stuff and I realised that refuse loading wasn’t really going to go anywhere so I applied for it.
Try MEN Premium for FREE by clicking here for no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features.
“I was only going to do it for a week or two but I ended up doing it for seven months. Obviously, there were things about it that were pretty gross but the days went pretty fast and the money was quite good. It was also like ‘when else am I ever going to do this again?’
“At first, I was expecting it to be a certain type of person who worked there but there were actually all different types of people who did it and it was a really nice community.”
Starting at 4.30am each morning, Joe would walk around 50,000 steps a day as he emptied bins. When he wasn’t working, he was experimenting with make-up and high heels.
“One of my friends was on RuPaul’s Drag Race and it led me to start thinking about whether I could do drag,” he said. “I started doing make-up lessons and doing quizzes on Zoom with my friends as Mariah Scarey.”
But the two lives never collided. “I didn't really tell them what I did in the evenings,” Joe explains. “We did different rounds all the time so I wasn’t really with the same people most of the time. It just never really came up, but there was a part of me that was a little bit worried about how they’d take it."
It was at this time that it occurred to Joe, who has previously worked on shows like Jersey Boys and Queens, that the life of a bin man turned drag queen could make for an entertaining show.
“I thought about how ridiculous it was that I was living in these two worlds where I’d have this ‘heteronormative’ bin man career but then pop on wigs in the night,” he explained. “I realised there was quite an interesting edge to it and I thought it could be explored further.”
It’s led to the creation of what is now Joe’s highly-praised show Wasteman. Fresh off the back of a sell-out run at the VAULT Festival in London having received two West End 'Offie' nominations, the show will arrive in Manchester at the The King's Arms in Salford on July 5-6 as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe.
While the show takes inspiration from his own experiences, he’s padded the character and story out through the art of performance and embellishment. “It is still a made-up character, definitely,” Joe laughs.
“It’s in the style of the likes of Fleabag and Mood by Nicole Lecky. It’s a character that’s based on my life but it isn’t me. The main character has no name, they’re just called Wasteman, and they’re a much bigger mess than I am!”
Speaking about how audiences have perceived the show, Joe explains: “There’s been a really positive response to the show. It’s actually been quite overwhelming how well it’s gone down.”
And speaking of that Fleabag inspiration, Wasteman was also one of only two recipients featuring drag acts to benefit from the Keep It Fringe Fund, set up by Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It will help support Wasteman’s upcoming Edinburgh Fringe run in August.
“I performed in the Edinburgh Fringe back in 2019 so it’s not my first rodeo,” Joe laughs. “But I’m very much looking forward to it. I’m also very excited to be able to take the show to Manchester for the first time.
“I was born in Bolton and it’s set in the general north west so I’ve always wanted to take it where I was born and grew up. It’ll be my first time performing it in Manchester.”
Wasteman runs from July 5-6 at The King's Arms - tickets here. The show will also be performed at the Assembly George Square Underground as part of Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 4-28.
