Victoria Elizabeth, the transgender magician from Newham - Londoner #25
As a young boy Victoria was inspired by Paul Daniels, and the sparkly glamour of 70s variety. Nowadays, Victoria finds respite from her “grotty, humdrum life”, through her own performances of comic magic under the name “Princess Victoria Elizabeth”.
We join Victoria at the Cheese and Crackers cabaret in Battersea, where she competes against a diverse range of performers. She is pessimistic about her chances, but will Victoria be victorious this time?
Victoria is the first transgender Londoner in the 1000 Londoners series.
1000 LONDONERS
This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a five-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.
www.1000londoners.com
www.youtube.com/1000londoners
www.facebook.com/1000londoners
Twitter: @1000_londoners
1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com
Transcript:
I first started getting in to magic when I was a little kid. Paul Daniels was on telly at the time so I used to get magic books from the book club at school. When I decided to become a magician, I largely wanted to become that lady there in this lovely white dress with the chicken. She's making that chicken appear. I think it's important to bring the glamour, the dressing up back into magic which takes you away from your grotty hum-drum life I find. I got made redundant in 2012 and once that job was out the way, I just went full-time as a woman. That was the only reason I was really staying as a boy, was to go to work.
Have a great show, thank you very much.
Well tonight we're going to go and do a show on Battersea Barge. They do a cabaret there every month and your going to get a great comedy magic show. And if nobody laughs then it'll just be a magic show. I'm trying to remember my act, you know, when you get old you start to forget what to do. I've never had a horrible crowd. I hope they're not horrible today. They might throw me off into the river.
Please welcome to the stage, Victoria Elizabeth.
So it's the gorgeous Victoria reporting for duty. Well I used to put up with a lot of abuse off people. And none of that happens anymore. When I went full time as a woman that just stopped.
I've just had my boobs done, do you like them? You don't?
Better get the audience to vote on the best act at the end. Nobody ever comes to see me. Nobody knows me. I just have to reach out for the audience, form a friendship from them and hope they don't reject me. House number three, Princess Victoria Elizabeth ladies and gentlemen. The cabaret's called cheese and crackers so that's what he's going to give out as a prize, which sounds like it's worth winning. Because cheese and crackers, I like both of those things. But I never win, I never win anything. I've never won anything in my life.
