TRANSFORMER

Someone at ID Magazine once described Transformer as 'beauty beyond the call of duty'. Out of drag, Burnel (as mum and dad named him) came across rather shy, unassuming, even retiring, certainly a world apart from his club freak alter ego. The tall and handsome misfit from Norfolk, an ex-chemical engineer, originally came to London hoping lo live out his fantasies. He did. Once he'd put on the slap and the gigantic creations he'd dreamt up, he literally turned into the life of the party. His theatrical background - he trained as stage manager - helped him create surreal outfits, awash with witty cultural allusions. The ones that spring to mind are the Princess Di/Candle Up Yr Bum tribute dress, the twisted Botticelli/Birth Of Venus and the Blue Britannia, complete with the toilet roll codpiece and flashing nipples. Even Bridget Jones raved about his Joan of Arc incarnation in her diary. Transformer first made his presence felt at Kinky Gerlinky, in the early '90s. Promoters flocked to rope him into hosting their club nights. Unsuspecting punters had the privilege to witness his outrageous antics at The Mud Club, God's Kitchen, The Sex Maniac's Ball and Gatecrasher. Miss Moneypenny went one step further by making him their mascot, sponsoring him for standing in the general election against Neil Hamilton. He was constantly booked for club PAs abroad and popped up in many a pop video. But his most fondly remembered club moment proved to be Bedsit, the lounge he ran weekly from 1999 within Heaven's arches. He would painstakingly transform what was then a cafeteria into a bedsitting room hell, complete with a huge scallop shell-mounted bed, a well-stacked dressing-up box and the obligatory B&Q garden pool fountain. Clubbing had never been such a scream. Beside entertaining people, he liked nothing better than shock and cabaret proved an ideal medium for him. One of his acts involved prancing about as a pink cloud, pissing on the audience, while making his arse lip-synch to 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain'. He told me once that he saw the light when he first wore his mum's stilettos at the age of three. Burnel was a close friend of mine up until his untimely death in August 2002. I miss him a lot and so does the club scene at large ...