Ex-country and western singer turned lesbian performance artist, Tammy WhyNot is the alter ego of veteran performance artist Lois Weaver, who has been making projects that explore direct experiences of social issues for the past six years. This bouffant-wigged, kitten-heeled persona is outrageous enough, yet identifiable enough, to invite confidences. As Tammy, Weaver collaborates and converses with a range of participants (here older people’s groups and assisted living community groups in Brighton) before bringing her findings together in a highly inclusive performance format, that shares public experience of a range of issues, where the social meets the personal.

Here our subject is sex. Specifically, sex for older people (as self- or societally-defined): the ways desire and intimacy can morph within more mature relationships (casual or long term) and the impacts these changes have on private lives. It’s a taboo topic, though this only becomes really clear to me in the feeling of liberation I discover as more and more audience members open up around me about their experiences.

Weaver has developed a lovely formula for producing genuine sharing and discussion – moving between audience members with a changing, unpredictable selection of well thought through questions that kickstart conversation. She clambers in amongst us, up close and personal, with prompts that are just open enough to allow multiple interpretation, just cheeky enough to invite confidences if you want to share. As a facilitator Tammy is a brilliant interlocutor, warm and kind with a fine judgement in just the right follow-up questions, and fearless enough to carry us with her curiosity.

The project’s collaborations with local community groups are also highly effective. Tammy greets many of the audience as we arrive as old friends, opening out the sense of inclusivity to include the whole room, and the small backing group she’s put together from her outreach participants who shyly provide choruses and choreography to the inevitable country and western set pieces are completely charming. And it’s when WhyNot invites them to share some of their remarkable views and experiences she has discovered that the show really comes into its own. Their idiosyncratic perspectives, honesty, and courage are really profound reminders of the uniqueness of each of our life stories. In these moments, the audience fractures into a warm community of individuals: the show succeeds in celebrating the beautiful differences between us.

This is a hybrid performance, whose structure incorporates detailed character work, live singing, music videos, confessions both live and rehearsed. The more generic and staged sections – a phone call Q & A to a doctor, songs about shopping and celebrity – felt less carefully placed in this intensely personal context; perhaps hangovers from earlier What Tammy Needs to Know productions, although they set a tone. The evening ran long, and I wished for a slightly tighter focus or perhaps greater confidence, in the interest of the public material and conversions that made up its vivid heart.

But the experience overall remained uplifting, and felt like a genuine conversation that succeeded in animating the audience and heightening the sense of real connection between us. A touching and profound piece of work that left me hoping that whether or not I’m still doing it in my 70s, I’ll remember that my experience remains valid, valuable, and interesting.