Unidentified Fluid Other: Gaylien de Mars @ Ironworks
A cosmic, queer reckoning with self, gender and the beautiful mess of being human, anchored with superb vocals.
There are shows you watch and shows you absorb. Unidentified Fluid Other is firmly the latter. Gaylien de Mars arrives in a diaphanous veil, navigating human identity, trying on faces and personas in search of something the binary world seems determined to withhold, the right to exist as a self that is still becoming.
Ironworks Studio C is the ideal vessel: industrial, atmospheric, humming with the kind of contained darkness that suits a show this emotionally exposed. With haze drifting through the projections and the crowd leaning in rather than sitting back, the venue had serious vibes and the production used every inch of them.
The vocals are the show's beating heart. De Mars commands the room with Björk-like strangeness and Annie Lennox's cool authority, filtered through a Bowie-esque flair for transformation. But it is in the softer, more exposed moments that another comparison surfaces: the raw, grief-threaded honesty of Anohni, beauty deployed not to console, but to illuminate. Standout (for me) was Scream, which crackled with campy vintage-projection energy and landed like a proper queer anthem, the kind that makes a room feel briefly collective.
The show moves through addiction, infertility, transphobia and misogyny without ever buckling under the weight. De Mars holds rawness and humour in the same breath, the lightness earns its place because the depth feels real. Backing dancers Stella Adore and Ruby, alongside the wider creative team, support with a satisfying rhythm; prop changes flow, the stage breathes, nothing lurches.
This is unmistakably Brighton work and exquisitely fringe; rooted in the city's queer culture and made possible by the Ironclad New Writing Fringe bursary yet it reaches far beyond it. Brighton has always understood that queer specificity, told honestly, opens onto something universal. I missed the final moments, so can't say whether the show resolves but I suspect it doesn't, and that this is entirely deliberate. The true self here is not a destination but a horizon, always approached, never fixed. For many of us, that is the most honest thing queer art can offer.
Unidentified Fluid Other is bold, tender, funny, and genuinely moving.
Wed 20 May, 8pmTickets£15 / £10 conc.VenueIronworks, Studio C
More info or to book tickets Brighton Fringe website.
Scene was founded in Brighton in 1993, at a time when news stories about Pride protests were considered radical.
Since then, Scene has remained proudly independent, building a platform for queer voices. Every subscription helps us to report on the stories that matter to LGBTQ+ people across the UK and beyond.
Your support funds our journalists and contributes to Pride Community Foundation’s grant-making and policy work.
Member discussion