Fatt Butcher to tour the UK with new show CONGREGATIONAL

Emma Jones

The nightclubs are closing, the village is dying, we’re tired and scared, but the beat of the dance floor’s heart keeps on pumping. 

Following a celebrated work-in-progress at Fierce Festival, Birmingham composer and vocalist Fatt Butcher presents Congregational, a new avant-garde musical written in response to the closure of queer nightlife spaces that transforms theatres, music venues and festivals into nightclubs through ritual, song and collective joy in a glorious act of resurrection. 

Created by Fatt Butcher in collaboration with Nicky Harris and Tobre and performed with a live choir of professional queer vocalists, virtuosic piano and a live DJ and otherworldly visuals, Congregational reimagines the traditional choral mass as a funeral-cum-resurrection for disappearing nightlife venues. Audiences are invited to sing, dance, and join the congregation in a temporary cathedral built from sound systems, harmony and sweat. 

Part choral concert. Part rave. Part Communion. Part act of resistance.

Complete with newly composed hymns for the dancefloor blending house, trance, gospel, classical and experimental music, Congregational celebrates the spaces that have sustained LGBTQ+ communities while asking what happens when those spaces begin to disappear. Congregational is a joyous and deeply moving celebration of community, survival and collective ecstasy (and yes, there will be poppers!) 

Fatt Butcher comments, “Nightclubs have saved countless queer lives. They've given us somewhere to grieve, somewhere to celebrate, somewhere to fall apart and somewhere to become ourselves. Congregational is about honouring those spaces and asks what happens when those venues die? It’s an invitation to see the club for what it always was, something sacred. It's joyful, messy, emotional, funny, spiritual, sweaty and loud, just like queer nightlife has always been.”

Heralded by critics as an “incredible vocal powerhouse” by West End Best Friend, “commandingly camp” by The Times and memorably described as “accelerating the decline of humanity” by trolls on Twitter, Fatt Butcher has built a reputation for creating ambitious, genre-defying performance that combines drag, live music, community ritual and spectacular theatricality. 

The service doesn't end with the final hymn. Every performance culminates in a live DJ after-party, inviting audiences to continue dancing together long after the choir has sung its final note. 

Because some ceremonies shouldn't end when the lights come up. 

To buy tickets, click here