I had no idea what I was in for when I first stepped foot into the House of Life. It was 2024 and my first time at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where my friends and I were popping our Fringe cherries.
We’d already spent one afternoon wincing at the first comic to lure us into their one-man show, so it hadn’t been the start we hoped for.
Thankfully, we met with someone in the know, who had an Excel spreadsheet of shows they wanted to see and at the top of that list was a queer cabaret called House of Life.
It turned out to be the most unexpected fun I’ve had in 60 minutes – and more powerful than therapy.
For anyone who missed out on the cult immersive – and very secretive -experience, You Me Bum Bum Train, because you’re not Madonna, Katy Perry or Jeff Bezos, House of Life is another show with the same power to change your direction. And you don’t need to sign an NDA to see it.
Later this month, it comes to London’s Soho Theatre for a five-night stint as part of its never-ending tour around the world.
I’ll admit it’s practically impossible to put the concept into one box, but as founder Ben Welch explains to me: ‘House of Life is a travelling musical collective with one mission to get you happy at any cost. Ultimately, it’s an experience, it’s about celebrating the people in the room, trying to find genuine connection and see what building a community in the room looks like.’
Ben stars as the RaveRend or The Rev, draped in sequinned robes, silver boots, oversized yellow shades and a glittered beard. His sidekick is Trev, a socially awkward musician in a creased grey suit and tie who could be the fifth member of Interpol, played by Ben’s real-life schoolmate Lawrence Cole.
The Rev hogs the spotlight, but their chemistry is the heart of House of Life.
As The Rev greets everyone at the door, he smears glitter across their cheeks, and as my friends and I entered the House of Life, we immediately felt energised, intrigued and comforted knowing whatever we’ve let ourselves in for, we’re in safe hands.
Soon, The Rev had people all around me frankly sharing their biggest anxieties or anything they wanted to celebrate, be it a new job or the person sitting next to them.
When it was my turn, he asked what was making me angry about the world in that moment. It was weeks after the general election, and without hesitation, I vented into the microphone: ‘Nigel F**king Farage!’
Moments later, my outburst had been mixed with a disco track, and the whole room was dancing to the record I didn’t know I had in me on loop.
The beauty of House of Life is that each show is completely different to the last.
The Rev steers the ship, but the audience decides the journey by sharing their own experience. The music is inspired by whatever people get off their chest, with Trev on the track and The Rev belting out lyrics on the spot with unbelievably quick improvisation and the gusto of Tom Jones.
Many who have been there once, like me, need to experience it again. And again.
Ben recalls: ‘We had one woman at the end of the run in Edinburgh who had been travelling the world and said to me, “I’ve been really lost, I’ve been depressed, asking myself, what am I doing? I don’t know where I’m going, but now I feel like it just doesn’t matter because I’ve got people around me here, and this show taught me to just grab life and enjoy it. So many strangers have given me so much joy and love.”‘
During the show, audience members are also asked to visualise what they want from life. At one performance, a woman told The Rev she visualised leaving her job and going travelling. Later, she got in touch to tell him it was ‘the best thing I ever did’.
Since its successful Edinburgh run, the world wants a bite of the show’s contagious joy. The Rev and Trev have just travelled around Norway, where they’re ‘a bit more reserved’.
‘But they were so in it and listening,’ adds Ben. ‘Once they knew that was the task, they celebrated their friends and talked beautifully about their lives and dreams.’
Next, they’ll be heading to the queer venues of New York, surely the natural setting for a sermon held by a gay and glittered gospel singer.
Listening to Ben’s story, it becomes clear that House of Life was the inevitable path he was meant to tread.
As a teen, he was accepted at Television Workshop in Nottingham, the training ground for local stars such as Jack O’Connell, Bella Ramsey and Vicky McClure. He’s played the Panto Dame in Liverpool, set up his own company called Sheep Soup with his collaborator Nic Harvey, taking independent shows to places like Fringe, and in between projects, he’s worked with vulnerable young people to encourage them to pursue creative outlets.
His dad died shortly before his first child was about to be born, at a time when the world was beginning to crawl out of the coronavirus pandemic.
‘I was performing as an actor, other people’s material, hosting events and working with the community, they were all bubbling away and that was the creation of House of Life,’ Ben explains. ‘Then my first child was about to be born, and my dad passed away. It was a real shift moment. I thought, “I have to do this because who knows what time we have left?”’
After I went to the Fringe show, I felt more inspired than I had been in years. Ideas suddenly poured out of me for days, and I’ve since left my job to pursue many of them. The holistic experience has stayed with me ever since.
In the House of Life, it is the music that carries you. If Ben’s booming voice and performance weren’t as good as it is, the rest wouldn’t land. The tunes are infectious and slap as hard as they help.
When he was 14, like every aspiring millennial singer, he auditioned for The X Factor. ‘I went to Aston Villa’s football ground with my mum and tried to sing Valerie, but it was awful.’
Eventually, he recovered and took a dark comedy to the Fringe. He’d sing covers of tracks from the time, like Gnarls Barkley’s inescapable Crazy on the Edinburgh mile, to promote it. Naturally, people asked: ‘Is there song in the show?’
They’d missed a trick.
‘So we made this show, Mrs Green, about an old woman who was an ex-Motown soul singer and grew marihuana for her arthritis and was an agony aunt for the community. I played Mrs Green and developed my singing and songwriting during that process.’
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His voice is a clear nod to the female Black singers of the 60s and 70s, such as Aretha Franklin and Donna Summer. If you want a good time, come for the music alone and leave nourished in funk and disco.
The pair have already built their label, signed a distribution deal with Universal Records. Those tracks that have helped so many already will soon be bursting out of the confinement of venues and into streaming services for everyone. The possibilities are endless and are beginning to feel well within Ben’s grasp.
‘We have a plan to set House of Life off in the world as much as possible,’ he adds. ‘Maybe there are different versions in different places, but we’re just going to keep following our nose because we’re having the best time.’
House of Life returns to London’s Soho Theatre on May 27 til May 31.
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