The Outburst Queer Arts Festival came to a close on Saturday but not before fest favourite Rosa Tralee had a chance to bring her satirical show to the Falls Road.

A cross between an academic treatise by a horrendously jet-lagged Noam Chomsky and a Zoom call with a Kevin McAleer being held at gunpoint, the Rosa Tralee experience was brought to doorsteps across Belfast once the pandemic put paid to plans to stage the drag show sensation to a living, breathing, present-in-the-moment audience. 

Reading from her new blockbuster novelella (a shorter form of the novella), Youse, Rosa - AKA Patrick Scullion — promised a Googleesque critique of a land which time forgot — and where the folk of the Northern Jurisdiction had all the good gegs. 

"My works is inspired in part by Professor Shoshana Zuboff’s 2019 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and the life and career of May McFettridge MBE," explains Rosa. "This is a book dedicated to the local futures which must prevail in the global fightback against instrumentarian power."

Outburst Arts Director Ruth McCarthy said Rosa Tralee, festival artist-in-your-residence was just one highlight of a week-long digital extravaganza. "We were delighted to bring the festival to people's homes this year in the form of doorstep performances and publications as well as digital content," she said.

"I think we need to connect more than ever this year at a time when LGBTQ+ can feel especially isolated. So we're really pleased that many of the talks and performances from this year's festival will be available to watch back on our website into the future."