From the Archives

The Alternative Miss World

Andrew Logan, Divine, Little Nell, Molly Parkin and a host of great costumes in this alternative art-drag-fashion extravaganza.

• Director Richard Gayor
• UK 1980
• 90 min

A rare screening of the film record of the arty drag happening that was the 1978 Alternative Miss World show on Clapham Common. With appearances by Divine as guest of honour, Little Nell (singing ‘I Wanna Be a Beauty Queen’) and a dizzying array of extraordinary contestants giving their own take on the traditional categories of daywear, swimwear and evening wear. Look out for a young John Maybury, artist Jill Bruce, Molly Parkin, Lionel Bart, dozens of men in frocks, and a cheerfully chaotic event organised and hosted by the indefatigable man-woman sculpture MC that is Andrew Logan. Like a time capsule of some of the bottled-up creativity of the post-punk moment, this is art meets glamour by way of show-stopping exhibitionism writ large. With a deliciously bitchy insider’s commentary track by Molly Parkin, Eric Roberts and Logan himself among others, this is a unique moment of avant-garde delight.

Brian Robinson