Why this play?  

In July 2006 John Watson was browsing through the Auckland Public Library when he came across "Resident Alien", a script by Tim Fountain. The play features Quentin Crisp, as a 91 year old living in New York. The title refers to Quentin’s immigration status in America. Quentin had his first brush with fame in the mid 70’s with the biographical film "The Naked Civil Servant". Quentin has been something of a hero to John since that time. "I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would get to play Quentin Crisp. His philosophy of individual liberty is both uplifting and entertaining."

Who is Quentin Crisp?

Quentin Crisp, born in 1908 realised as a young man that there was nothing he could do to hide his naturally effeminate personality and so he chose to accentuate his style, rather than try and hide it.  With hennaed hair, gravity-defying makeup and inch-long pained fingernails, the young Quentin Crisp cut a brave and audacious figure in 19930s London.  However with a heightened wit, and a decided self possession, he managed to traverse the streets of a hostile London, enduring outward displays of hatred and contempt, and skirting physical danger, with a politeness and ingenuity.  He reached a pinnacle of recognition when the film inspired by his book The Naked Civil Servant was released when he was 68 yrs of age.  By that time he was the self proclaimed "Stately Old Homo of England".

The success of The Naked Civil Servant launched Crisp into a new direction in his life, that of performer and lecturer.  He devised a one-man show and began touring the UK with it.  The first half of the show was an entertaining monologue loosely based on his memoirs, the second half was a question & answer session with Crisp picking the audience’s written questions at random and answering them in an amusing manner.  In 1978 Crisp sold out the Duke of York’s Theatre in London, took the show to New York and eventually moved there.  By then he was 73 years of age.  Once in American Crisp continued to be enormously popular spending much of his time as a requested guest of notable presence, or a speaker, at a wide variety of events.  He was photographed endlessly, and appeared in a number of movies, often playing himself.  But he also played character roles including Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (stage version), and Queen Elizabeth I in the film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. 

Alongside appearances, Crisp continued to write:  both as a movie critic for the New York Times, and his own books including How to Have a Life-Style, Manners from Heaven, and Resident Alien – the New York Diaries.  His writings and his frequent public speaking engagements, form the script of Tim Fountain’s play Resident Alien.

Quentin Crisp was a man of impeccable manners and a slightly world-weary philosophy.  His gently cynical wit was laced with memorable epigrams and he became something of a guru to a far younger generation who delighted in his individualism.  He man who once called himself "invincibly peculiar" had triumphed over prejudice to become, paradoxically, part of the establishment that had once so cruelly mocked him.

Some quotes of Quentin Crisp’s: 

Never keep up with the Jones.  Drag them down to your level.  Its cheaper  

If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.

On appearing in a Calvin Klein advert :
I knew it was important because this enormous limousine purred up outside the house to collect me.  It was so big inside that the first time it turned a corner I fell off the seat.  We drove to a huge warehouse and I though, "how fabulous!  We’re going to remake The Charge of the Light Brigade!’  But then we were told to stand on a piece of paper about twice the size of this table while a half-naked man writhed between our legs.  I looked at Mr Klein and I said, ‘But what does it all mean?’  And that was what they used in the advertisement…

On his famous non-housework, non dusting and non vacuuming policy:
After the first four years it doesn’t get any worse. 

On Quentin Crisp

"He nimbly answers anything asked of him, with clever responses he probably concocted years before the questioner was born" – Theatre Critic commenting on ‘An Evening with Quentin Crisp’ 

"If, manners maketh man as someone said
Then he’s the hero of the day
It takes’ a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say 

John Watson:  Actor and Producer

Theatre Corporate, Court, Fortune, Centrepoint Actor 1973-1986

TV/Film Guest roles on such productions as Gloss, Funny business, Shark in the Park, Homeward Bound, Black Stallion as well as the usual suspects:  Shortland St, Hercules and Xena

Set:  John Parker 
Lighting:  Andrew Malmo 
Costume:  Kirsty Cameron