About

Sam Reynolds (he/she/they) is a Filipinx-Irish-British international award-winning live artist, alternative cabaret performer, host, producer and go-go dancer based in London.

Using humour, pop culture, and popular forms such as contemporary dance, physical comedy, striptease, and the queer performance tradition of lip-syncing, he creates accessible and theatrical social commentary exploring themes such as race, queerness, identity, and vulnerability.

Selected Highlights

2023

• Sam performed at the first Duckie Saturday of the year at Eagle London
• performed at QUEER JOY at Studio 3 Arts in celebration of LGBT History Month
• performed in the mini-run of The Bitten Peach’s STICKY at Vault Festival, which was Nominated for the After Dark Award at the Vault Festival Awards
• performed in Baby Lame’s first Shit Show of the year at The Glory
• performed at Have you eaten yet? Collective, DÉCALÉ, and Asia-Art-Activism’s Year of the Rabbit celebration LUNAR LATE at Matchstick Piehouse

2022

• Sam made his Berlin show debut at Skärselden | Purgatory Magazine‘s debut event, Love Purgatory, at Untergeschoss der Pandora Art Gallery, and guested on Zola Gorgon’s radio show on Keith F’em while in town along with Oberon White, bringing their Frenemies show to another medium

• started leading the communications for Carers’ Common Room, a communal rest space for domiciliary care workers in Brixton
• became a Seeding Space resident artist at London Performance Studios, along with his Cushion Eurasian Society co-member Jasmine Shigemura Lee
• brought his piece Um back home to Duckie on one of the last Duckie Saturdays at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern
• was part of the all-Filipinx line-up of Mahatma Khandi’s Khandi Shop Pinoy Edition at the Pleasance Theatre
• returned to perform at both Baby Lame’s Shit Show at The Glory and Screaming Alley Cabaret in Ramsgate
• hosted the Bug Ball night of live art, as part of the Emerging from the Rubble exhibition at Staffordshire St, Peckham

2021

• Sam became an Associate Artist with Asia-Art-Activism and undertook a residency as an AAA Researcher in Residence at Raven Row
• presented a live performance of his piece Spell adapted for the digital realm, on the penultimate night of Paul Mellon Centre’s London, Asia, Art, Worlds conference. The performance was part of QueerAsias: Virtualising Cartographies, a programme curated by Annie Jael Kwan and featuring Abdullah Qureshi, Joel Tan, Sin Wai Kin, Yarli Allison, and Yin Lo, and including a podcast with all of the artists
• was a special guest on season two of Leave Your Shoes Outside, a podcast series on contemporary arts practice in Asia hosted by Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan and Gabbi Campomanes, and presented in partnership with Pineapple Lab and Fringe Creative, with support from British Council Philippines
• returned to Latitude Festival with Duckie, and made his debut with The Cocoa Butter Club
• returned to The Yard Theatre to go-go dance at the debut of GGI 끼, London’s first queer East and Southeast Asian club night
• returned to go-go dance at The Cause for their closing party on New Year’s Eve
• closed the first edition of RUMAH’s monthly online event Welcome to My Crying Party

2020

• Sam started performing at Duckie’s The Posh Club
• joined Asia-Art-Activism and showed a video of a live performance of Spell as part of Annie Jael Kwan’s screening pathway in AAA’s month-long online programme Till We Meet Again IRL during the pandemic
• became one of the selected artists for Raze Collective’s digital portfolio commission Raze Your Profile in light of performers losing live work due to the pandemic
• wrote an article on his experiences of sex and dating as a gender-fluid person for Volume I of queer zine The Thief’s Journal, with photos of him by Asher Fynn
• was part of Asher Fynn’s debut ANTICS, live-streamed online in lockdown, and ANTICS‘ debut live event six months later at VFD, the latter of which featured Sam and Asher’s collaboration on Asher’s piece BUNKER, where Sam lip-synced to Asher’s live vocals while a video by Asher of Sam lip-syncing to Asher’s vocals was projected simultaneously
• was part of Siân Docksey’s comedy show Why Is The Stripper Talking?, in a line-up entirely of current and former strippers, at the Museum of Comedy on International Women’s Day
• closed both The Bitten Peach’s comedy night LMAO (Laugh My Asian Off) at The Karaoke Hole and the collective’s Lunar New Year: Year of the Rat season

2019

• Sam produced, hosted, and performed in his birthday party show at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
• was one of the two resident artists in Artists Home Swap, staying in Taipei for one month where he brought his (T)werkshops back home to Asia and performed across Taiwan
• returned to the Philippines and performed in Pineapple Lab’s Gayborhood at Escolta Block Festival 2019 in Manila
• made his Parisian show debut at La Mutinerie’s Porn Yourself Festival
• made his respective hosting debuts at Bar Wotever (The Royal Vauxhall Tavern), Diaspora Disco (The Glove That Fits), The Karaoke Hole (Frenemies with Scarlett Lassoff), and CRAMPS (The Chateau)
• made his club DJ debut at Bar Wotever at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern
• started go-go dancing at Dalston Superstore and returned to Wilderness Festival to go-go for The Cause and Adonis, as well as at The Cause on New Year’s Eve
• partook in Asia-Art-Activism’s AAA Radio’s A Series of Uncomfortable Conversations with Cường Phạm, Annie Jael Kwan, Burong, Finn Love, Nguyễn Phương Trăm, Sin Wai Kin, and Whiskey Chow
• walked his first vogue ball at Leeds’ first entirely QTIPOC-featured House of Flava Ball with Red Bull Music and Our Space Leeds
• walked his first runway at London Queer Fashion Show at the V&A Museum of Childhood

2018

• as part of his residency at Pineapple Lab in Manila, Sam ran a series of performance workshops, the (T)werkshops
• made his debut art video
• and performed throughout Fringe Manila
• upon returning to the UK, he performed at the first Ramsgate Festival of Sound and joined Ramsgate’s Screaming Alley Cabaret
• performed at the first edition of London-based East and Southeast Asian club night Diaspora Disco
• became the first artist to ever be rolled thrice out of six at DICE Festival
• go-go danced at the late, great Savage Disco
• started the first of his drag brunches at DRINK, SHOP & DO and Dalston Superstore with Oberon White

2017

• Sam was awarded funding by Arts Council England and the British Council as part of their Artists’ International Development Fund
• began his residency at Pineapple Lab in Manila
• was Nominated by Oliver-winning director Mark Whitelaw for the Arts Foundation Fellowship at the 25th Arts Foundation Anniversary Awards
• produced the London tour of ground-breaking theatre show Nights at the Circus
• performed alongside Big Freedia at her Duckie debut
• made his Brighton Fringe debut as a guest artist performing at Carnesky’s Finishing School at Brighton Spiegeltent
• joined the Arcola Queer Collective and performed in a rare adaptation of Mae West’s The Drag at Arcola Theatre
• performed at Traumfrau’s Queer New Year at Brighton’s Rialto Theatre

2016

• Sam performed in The Miss Behave Gameshow at Underbelly Festival’s London Wonderground Spiegeltent at the Southbank Centre
• and, making his international show debut, at Australia’s Darwin Festival
• made his Asian show debut in his maternal homeland of the Philippines, at Pineapple Lab in Makati, Metro Manila
• made his Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut opening for CHRISTEENE at Dive Queer Party’s C U Next Tuesday Cabaret at Summerhall
• was the special guest artist performing at the Grand Opening of Carnesky’s CFS Soho, and closed the Best of CFS at Latitude Festival
• was a finalist in The Glory’s LIPSYNC1000
• closed Our Liberation Tribute Past & Future at Trades Union Congress House
• performed twice at Dickie Beau’s AT HOME with the House of Strange Loops, of which he is a drag family member

2015

• Sam won Striptease Artist of the Year at the 21st Sexual Freedom Awards
• closed the Cabaret Arena on the Saturday night at Latitude Festival closing Duckie’s headline show
• performed in Duckie’s Twenty First Century Music Hall at The Citadel in St Helens on Duckie’s twentieth anniversary weekend
• performed alongside David Hoyle in the original run of The Prime of Ms David Hoyle as part of Chelsea Theatre’s SACRED
• made his stand-up comedy debut at Soho Theatre
• joined Tammy WhyNot’s WhyNets for the Wellcome Collection’s Institute of Sexology
• started the year as a Resident Artist at the Roundhouse where he founded and ran the venue’s resident cabaret and performance art troupe Cushion Collective

Despite having no formal training or studies in performance, Sam has performed at Goldsmiths, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Queen Mary University of London, Central Saint Martins, University of Westminster, and University College London’s Slade School of Fine Art, as well as at 駁二藝術特區 | Pier-2 Art Center in Koahsiung, Taiwan, where he also took part in a panel discussion and lead workshops for students at 國立中山大學 | National Sun Yat-sen University as part of Artists Home Swap 2019.

As well as those mentioned, he has worked with various artists and producers, such as Lara Clifton, Ursula Martinez, Timberlina, David Rosenberg, The Invisible Circus, Fani Parali, Nando Messias, and Joshua Sofaer.

Check out Sam’s further work here, his projects here, and contact him here.