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# FEATURE : A Night In With Fran Lebowitz
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/feature-a-night-in-with-fran-lebowitz/
- Published: 2021-03-23T17:17:08.000Z
- Updated: 2021-03-24T10:20:38.000Z
- Description: Brian Butler laughs out loud at the ultimate raconteuse Fran Lebowitz
- Author: Brian Butler
- Tags: Arts, Reviews, Television, Brighton, Dome, Donald Trump, Netflix

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/fran-lebowitz-1600.png)](https://www.gscene.com/arts/feature-a-night-in-with-fran-lebowitz/attachment/fran-lebowitz-1600/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)

I had to Google to see if raconteuse was a word but yes it is ! Fran Lebowitz is the queen of story-telling- dark, witty, funny and always challenging.

[The Dome Brighton ](https://www.visitbrighton.com/whats-on/brighton-dome-and-fane-online-a-night-in-with-fran-lebowitz-p1856591?ref=scenemag.co.uk)brilliantly partnered with Fane online to give us 90 minutes of Fran, which is some of the best minutes I’ve spent in lockdown. Interviewed by journalist Hadley Freeman, it’s a case with Fran of touching her talk button and off she goes.

The 70-year-old Manhattan resident is enjoying great exposure right now via her series of Netflix programmes Pretend It’s A City, chatting to her friend director Martin Scorcese.

There are lots of revelations in this live-streamed session with Hadley. For a start she is in a friend’s apartment using their computer to Zoom to us, because she frankly admits she doesn’t have a cell phone or a computer – never has had, not even a typewriter. “ I don’t like machines “ she tells us.

As for social media – they are not for her : “ It’s never been my desire to be totally available to the entire world 24 hours a day”. She also reveals that having lived in New York for 50 years , “ there’s not a square foot of New York that’s like it was in 1970\. People are furious things change but the point of a city is that it changes all the time “.

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/680-a131655fc26d6600.png)](https://www.gscene.com/arts/feature-a-night-in-with-fran-lebowitz/attachment/680-a131655fc26d6600/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)

As an outspoken lesbian she admits she was not surprised by the shocking sexism she was subjected to in the 70’s and she singles out chat show host Orson Bean . “ I am surprised that it’s changed. I wasn’t surprised by it then . I never liked it but I couldn’t change it .It’s the world we lived in . Being gay was a crime , and it was less noticed in women than in men. I could wear a 3-piece suit at an event and the first question would be – are you married ? Do you have children?” She says lesbianism was “ unspoken – people were unaware of it “.

Asked if she was “ out “ Fran replied: “ Not in that way, then. When there was a raid on a gay bar people were terrified because their names would be in the newspaper the next day and they’d all be fired. People were terrified”.

”I was so happy when I got to New York – I didn’t go to the gay bars much, so I wasn’t scared at the time ; it was fun to be in New York and in your 20’s “.

Fran has a great skill in throwaways; “ I don’t take people that seriously….I don’t get intimidated by people…. Andy Warhol and I didn’t like each other ..he sought out fragile people and lots of people round him died…I sold all my Warhol pictures two weeks before he died, so I have a particular fury about this – he died and the prices went high- the prices now are ridiculous. “ Of her friendship with jazz legend Charlie Mingus she says: “ He was a pretty angry guy – mostly he ignored people”.

Of her own character she revealed: “ I was always opinionated: I never cared whether people agreed with me – even as a kid. People get really angry at me – it’s ridiculous – what difference does it make ? I have no power – I don’t understand their anger. Now people take a very simple thing to be an ideological stance, whereas they’re just preferences – it’s a very narrow lens. An opinion is not the same as a moral stance, by the way. You can’t be a racist and be a moral person, but not liking sci fi is just an opinion”.

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/imageresizer600.png)](https://www.gscene.com/arts/feature-a-night-in-with-fran-lebowitz/attachment/imageresizer600-2/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)

She has quite a store of vitriol for Donald Trump though she doubts she ever met him. “ In the 70’s no-one took him seriously, not even real estate developers – he was not important enough to be a joke . Hilary Clinton won the election in New York by 9 to 1.”

She admits his 2016 victory was one of the biggest shocks of her life – “ it was literally ludicrous . One of the greatest reliefs of my life was the second Biden won I stopped thinking about Trump ”. Asked if the country will recover from Trump, she is candid : “ not in my lifetime “

Asked why she has stopped writing books she says in her Fran way:” I don’t think about myself as much as other people think about themselves; you get tired of yourself . I never wanted to be anyone else . I have no envy about others . I’ve known lots of smart people but only one wise person “ , she says , meaning the late poet Toni Morrison. ” We were instant friends- I miss her every day “.

On lockdown she says : “ think of all the lives lost and the people who got sick – a very young child – their whole life will be changed by this – they’re told don’t touch people; don’t stand next to people “.

For further Brighton Dome/Fane [**online events go to Brighton Dome website here**](https://brightondome.org/whats%5Fon/livestreams/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)