Sugar Daddy is a one-man show about \u201clove, grief and insulin\u201d by the 31-year-old standup Sam Morrison. An autobiographical monologue that turns tragedy into comedy, it tells of how Morrison fell in love with Jonathan, who was 24 years his senior, after meeting him at a gay bear festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2021, two and a half years into their relationship, Jonathan died from Covid.<\/p>\n
For the last four years, Morrison has been performing Sugar Daddy around the world; next month he brings an updated version to London\u2019s West End. The co-producer is Billy Porter<\/a>, 56, the Emmy-winning singer, actor and director whose credits include Pose, American Horror Story and Cabaret.<\/p>\n Porter and Morrison have got together over a video call to talk hecklers, the healing properties of laughter and bridging the divide between generations of gay men. Morrison is beaming in from balmy Los Angeles while Porter is talking from his home in New York, where the temperature is 3C. \u201cWinter is a choice,\u201d he says, grimacing. \u201cAnd I\u2019d like to make a different one.\u201d<\/p>\n Lightbulb moment \u2026 Sam Morrison in Sugar Daddy. Photograph: Jason Williams<\/p>\n In Sugar Daddy, Jonathan is described as a bear. Can you elaborate for those unfamiliar with the term?<\/p>\n Billy Porter In the gay male community, there are different categories. There are twinks, twunks, bears and otters. Then you have the muscle daddies and the muscle bears.<\/p>\n Sam Morrison In the show, I have a joke: I\u2019m into bears and I\u2019m diabetic. My type is type 1, and my type is type 2. It\u2019s a roundabout way of saying: I like a big boy and a belly.<\/p>\n What inspired you to turn your grief into comedy?<\/p>\n SM This is a show about love, and it\u2019s about what you do after you lose that love. For better or for worse, I process life through comedy and I make jokes. After Jonathan died, I started doing standup again and, at a certain point, it felt crazy not to talk about it. I\u2019ve always been into talking about my life and what I\u2019m thinking about. And this was all I was thinking about.<\/p>\n BP It\u2019s called processing. We have to process our grief and our trauma, and we all do it in different ways. And go back into the annals of history, you\u2019ll see lots of comedians are depressed. The first time I watched this show, my mother was still alive. She died two years ago so I also find myself processing grief. It is necessary for human beings dealing with difficult things to laugh. Laughter is the greatest medicine for healing.<\/p>\n double quotation markI just don\u2019t know why our society is so obsessed with skinny people<\/p>\n I think there\u2019s something powerful about the one-person standup space, and this piece shoots right in the middle of that. It tells the truth and, as artists, it\u2019s our job to tell the truth. And there\u2019s a lot of lying going on at the moment and a lot of silence. I\u2019m moving into the standup comedy space right now because I have overwhelming rage with what\u2019s going on in the world and what\u2019s not being done to meet it. I know that I process through my art and I always have.<\/p>\n Billy, you are one of the show\u2019s producers [alongside Alan Cumming]. What does that mean in practice?<\/p>\n BP It has to do with me being a queer leader in the industry and in the culture. If my name is on something, then people understand that it\u2019s quality. That is the hope.<\/p>\n SM I\u2019ll add that I\u2019ve admired Billy for so long, and I was always wondering: how the heck do I get him to see this?<\/p>\n BP Send it to her! Send it to the bitch!<\/p>\n SM For me [having Billy involved] is so surreal. When you\u2019re a closeted kid and you see someone like Billy being Billy on television, you\u2019re like: \u201cOh my God, you can do that? Like, you can do that weird thing you do with your fingers on television? Like, I didn\u2019t think they would allow that.\u201d Just hearing you talk about my show, Billy, you just get right to the truth of it.<\/p>\n Grin and bear it \u2026 Sam Morrison in Sugar Daddy. Photograph: Jason Williams<\/p>\n BP Well, you\u2019re sweet and I\u2019m old. OK, older. But honey, I\u2019ve been around a little bit longer, so I\u2019ve had a little bit of practice.<\/p>\n SM I think that\u2019s the tagline for the show: \u201cYou\u2019re sweet and I\u2019m old.\u201d<\/p>\n BP There\u2019s another thing that I love about Sugar Daddy. The categories within gay culture that are created to initially foster community very often keep people out. So the mainstream white gay community is very specific. And if you don\u2019t fit into the whiteness and the physicality of that, you can be [cast] out. But in this piece, you\u2019re saying: \u2018I\u2019m not supposed to like this kind of person.\u2019 Sam could be at the top of the food chain with his whiteness and his beauty. He is a version of what the mainstream is in our culture. But right from the start, he tells us: \u201cYeah, I like overweight daddy bears.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam, can you talk about the shame you used to feel about that?<\/p>\n SM I think I didn\u2019t tell anyone I was gay for so long because of who I was attracted to. The fact is I\u2019m attracted to fat, old men and, whatever you\u2019re imagining, it\u2019s fatter and it\u2019s older. No one gets it and no one believes it.<\/p>\n BP I get it! Some of us get it.<\/p>\n SM Fully coming into myself was about realising how fatphobic this country is and then working through my own internalised fatphobia. And standup is just such a good medium to be able to talk about it. It\u2019s fun to be able to go up there and really yell and express that. I like to do it in this challenging way, probably because it comes from \u2026<\/p>\n BP Truth! It comes from a place of truth!<\/p>\n SM And also angst and anger. I just don\u2019t know why our society is so obsessed with skinny people. And to do it in a comedy club is so much more confrontational. There are a lot of people who are put off by those jokes.<\/p>\n Has there been a lot of negative feedback?<\/p>\n SM Oh my God, all the time. On one hand, people will come up to me and they\u2019ll whisper: \u201cI like plus-sized bodies too.\u201d And I\u2019m like: \u201cWhy are you whispering?\u201d But most of my career I\u2019ve been performing at New York City comedy clubs, where they\u2019ll yell at you in the middle of the show. They don\u2019t even wait until the end. I\u2019ve been doing these jokes for almost five years, and I\u2019m always shocked at how big the reaction to \u201cI\u2019m attracted to bellies\u201d is.<\/p>\n Sugar Daddy has now moved from comedy clubs into theatres. Has that environment made people more polite?<\/p>\n SM I certainly feel that. People are mostly respectful now. I don\u2019t think anything compares to a comedy club in Times Square at 2am. I mean, that\u2019s my bread and butter, and if they\u2019re not throwing things at me, that\u2019s great.<\/p>\n BP Did you have shit thrown at you?<\/p>\n SM Well, no. I\u2019m lying to the Guardian. Is that bad?<\/p>\n BP No, you\u2019re being hyperbolic, and that\u2019s OK. It felt like something was being hurled at you.<\/p>\n double quotation markDiabetes is such a funny thing. It\u2019s this life-threatening disease that\u2019s managed with candy, and it all feels very Willy Wonka<\/p>\n SM I\u2019ve had experiences as a comic where my safety has felt threatened. I had one set where people were chanting \u201cfaggot\u201d.<\/p>\n BP And what did you say? [Yells] \u201cIs that all you motherfuckers got?\u201d<\/p>\n SM No, Billy, I\u2019m not like you. I said: \u201cI\u2019m so sorry,\u201d and I ran away.<\/p>\n BP We need to hang out some more, because enough is enough. [You need to say] \u201cIs that all you bitches have? Faggot? Yes, I\u2019m a faggot. What\u2019s next?\u201d Do you see my rage? That\u2019s why I\u2019m trying to go into comedy, because I dare a bitch. I fucking dare you.<\/p>\n For those who haven\u2019t seen the show, can you explain where the diabetes theme comes in?<\/p>\n SM About six months after Jonathan passed, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The doctor said the diabetes was triggered by grief. My diabetes was latent, so it was waiting to be triggered by something.<\/p>\n BP The same thing happened to me. I had an infection in my tooth that went systemic before it started hurting. And the trauma from the infection and the intensity of the antibiotics triggered the type 2 diabetes that was in my genes.<\/p>\n