Le Gateau Chocolat

Le Gateau Chocolat’s work spans drag, cabaret, opera, musical theatre, children’s theatre and live art. His bewitching baritone has been heard in previous works Le Gateau Chocolat (2011), I ❤ Chocolat (2012), In Drag (2013 Royal Festival Hall commission) and BLACK (2014 Homotopia commission), which toured with music ensemble Psappha in 2017.

His children’s show Duckie premiered at the Southbank Centre in 2016, and was included in the Guardian’s ‘6 of the Best Shows for Children’ of the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show, which introduces young people to the ideas of otherness, tolerance and self-acceptance, has been presented at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Wales Millennium Centre, Roundhouse, Contact Theatre and across venues in the South East of England.

His recent production ICONS has toured to Sydney Festival, Wales Millennium Centre, Soho Theatre, Underbelly Southbank and more. ICONS has also been presented with accompaniment from the Little Coco Orchestra, a Le Gateau Chocolat initiative to support diverse musicians through the creation of an ensemble formed entirely of women of colour. This up-scaled production premiered at SPILL Festival in 2018, with a subsequent presentation at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire as part of SHOUT Festival.

As a technically-gifted and celebrated baritone, Le Gateau Chocolat has been invited to perform at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House, and as part of the Olivier- winning La Clique/La Soiree.

He has worked with composers Julian Philips, Jonathan Dove, Jocelyn Pook and Orlando Gough. He has performed as Feste in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe (2017) and in the Gate Theatre and English National Opera co-production Effigies of Wickedness – Songs banned by the Nazis (2018).

He also appeared as part of Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: The First Act at London’s Barbican Theatre (2019),and alongside Shaq Taylor, Adrian Lester, Beverley Knight and Clive Rowe in the guest role of Daddy Brubeck for the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Sweet Charity (2019).

Le Gateau Chocolat most recently appeared in Wagner’s Tannhauser, starring Stephen Gould, which opened the 108th Bayreuth Festival in 2019 and attracted headlines around the world for the reaction to his participation as a drag artist of colour.