John Cameron Mitchell, known as the writer, director and two time Tony Award winning star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, will be making his West End debut at the Adelphi Theatre in his own concert, John Cameron Mitchell: Live in London.

Recently, we had the chance to talk with John Cameron Mitchell about his upcoming London concert. We discussed what it’s like to put on concerts around the world, a bit of his creative process and some of the guests who will be taking part in the show.

Well, my first role was the Virgin Mary at a Catholic boys boarding school in Scotland in the early 70s, which was actually very cool in the boys school! Whoever had the best soprano got the role, and it wasn't really humiliating, except when I sang, “Sleep, holy babe, upon thy mother's breast.” That broke up the ten-year-olds - not the fact that I was in full drag! No makeup. Mary never had makeup. And then the next play I remember was Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party in high school. A far cry and a big jump!

My drama teacher, Pat Herron, was at our tiny Catholic high school, Saint Pius X in Albuquerque, which weirdly produced Mike Judge, who was there when I was there, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who came later and sent me a fan letter with a delightful little picture of him in a Phantom mask, which I kept on my fridge! He was humiliated by it but now loves it.

I don't know yet! It's my first show in London. I'm very excited. I can't believe I hadn't done a concert in London! I've done gigs, DJ’d with songs here and there, but this is the first real one. And luckily, my music director, Justin Craig, who music directed Stereophonic here and in London, will be my MD there. Also in the band will be Charlotte Hatherley, who is in a band called Ash. Used to go out with Michael Cerveris, who's also a guest, the first Hedwig in London back in 2000. So in the show, I'll be using this fun costume I used in the Origin of Love show. I will be doing Hedwig favourites. I'll be doing deep cuts from my new Bowie show, Queen Bitch. I'll do some songs I wrote, including one I wrote with Linda Perry for a possible upcoming musical that's a modern day Jesus as rock star.

And we have a ton of guests, including Boy George! Divina De Campo, a drag race star who played Hedwig recently up north of England [Leeds Playhouse] and got great reviews, Mason Alexander Park, who understudied Hedwig on the national tour, Nakhane, who is a South African singing star, who I met on Instagram and became my boyfriend in my musical podcast, Anthem: Homunculus. So it's packed with talent!  I'm also performing and hosting at Pride. I'm really going full out with London!

Well, I've been touring the last few years a lot, so really it's bits and pieces of all of the concerts. Like I said, the costume from one, I will have my lighting designer, Jojo Franjoine, who is very punk and very queer, a wonderful lighting designer who's trying to do new stuff. Shannon Conley, who played Yitzhak on the national tour, will join. She was our understudy on Broadway, and she was in a tribute band called Lez Zeppelin! So we're taking the greatest hits, the greatest bits, the greatest design from the four different shows I've been doing over the last decade. It's going to be a “Best of,” all the greatest hits.

Oh, I'm constantly performing! It never stops. I also do a show called BLACKSTAR Symphony. Donny McCaslin, who made Bowie's last album with him, arranged the whole album and other songs for orchestra, so I'm one of the vocalists for that. That's really his show, but I do it with Gail Ann Dorsey, who was Bowie's bass player for the last part of his life - and he's a wonderful singer. We've been doing it for two years off and on. So it's not really going back - it's just ongoing, flowing.

Well, I do like that one that I wrote with Linda Perry, called “Daystar,” which is a love song from Satan to Jesus. I also wrote a song I put out two albums during Covid called New American dream. And I'm going to do one of those songs called Sophia, which was about the Gnostic Mother of the Creator God. So there's some Christianity in there, for sure, doing the Queen Bowie show which we premiered at pack NYC. 

I hope they gob at me, which is the British term for spitting at a band you like. Is it too soon to crowd surf?  We'll find out! I crowd surfed all the way to the back of the Sydney Opera House once. 

Yeah, I learned that from Meow Meow. She does slow-motion crowd surfing while doing a ballad. I might try to do it during “Angry Inch.”

I'm just excited! My mom is from Glasgow, so I have cousins coming down from Scotland, and even from France and York! There's going to be a convergence of cousins. The boarding school was part of that deal. My mom wanted me to go to a Scottish school. And I'm doing the tour,  I'm working on this play, I'm developing a movie, I'm going to Japan right after London and then I do a gay cruise to Alaska. 

It does not stop! Then I'm teaching a class at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbour, for the entire fall semester, one class a week in film called “Problemagical Cinema.” And they actually fly me in and out! It's a special professorship. Weirdly, it has my dad's name, John H Mitchell. So I'm really feeling a kinship up there in Ann Arbour. I'm staying in this poet who I love's house, Anne Carson, and I've been doing this college tour. There was a kind of transcript in The [New York] Times of this thing I did about my college tour, trying to teach the kids about punk, which might very well be what they need right now. Basically, stop cancelling each other, learn about punk and please get laid. Why aren't young people getting laid? 

I would describe it as cheeky! Uber cheeky.

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