SYBIL ROUGE: SUPERSTAR

One of London's most elegant scenesters is lovingly interviewed by Pippa Brooks for PonyStep.com. I believe I met Sybil in the mid-80's in London, and I've been under the spell of this statuesque beauty ever since! So I was thrilled to find this in-depth chit-chat.

SYBIL ROUGE: SUPERSTAR by Pippa Brooks

I remember vividly the first time I saw Sybil Rouge. I’d not long lived in London, it was about 1989 and I’d just met Link Leisure. His friend Matthew Glamorre was putting on a show at Heaven and he suggested me for a supporting role. Sybil, obviously, played God. How apt...



I arrived for rehearsals, and a skirt-shaped scaffolding was being erected on the stage, almost to the ceiling. There were crucifixes hanging on either side from wire so they could spin around. This would be the Easter Show at Heaven. The part of God would be played by Sybil. As my eyes swept around the room, Matthew barking orders, the most glittering clubkids who I’d seen out at Bang, Heaven and Freds milling around and Sybil flanked by admirers, topless with Rita Hayworth waves of perfect red hair, I felt that London was finally delivering all I’d hoped for. I’d just left art college and was consumed by a fascination with Warhol and his factory of superstars mixed in with the people I read about as I pored over i-D magazine through the 80’s… somehow all roads had been leading to this moment!

Pippa Brooks: "So, Sybil, I couldn’t say I met you on this occasion, I saw you, was a satellite to your main attraction, in fact I was tied to one of the spinning crucifixes with the instruction to can can as best I could and for god’s sake 'Smile!' You were God".

Sybil Rouge: “Which has been great for my resume ever since! People ask me, “Have you ever been on the stage?” I say, “Yes, I played God…..topless!....smeared in fake blood”

PB: And the scaffolding was covered with your ‘skirt’, which was covered in vaginas through which clubkids were born! How high up were you?

SR: “My head was virtually scraping the ceiling”.

PB: "Sybil, you beat me to London by a few years".

SR: “The first day I ever lived in London was the summer of ‘86 I worked at the Limelight and I met Matthew Glamorre. Seventeen year old Matthew Glamorre was working the coatcheck in true Boy George style. After a prickly first week and a half he realised I wasn’t the threat he’d imagined I was, and we became friends. He was ruling the roost somewhat even though he was only 17. Now this was the glory days of the Limelight, sadly its now an Australian themed bar called Walkabout". I was the waitress in the VIP room, even though I served very few drinks as the room was about 5m square with a bar in one corner so no-one actually needed a waitress, they were right next to the bar ….so I would just stand around and chat up celebrities! The regulars included “Boy George, Lemmy , Siouxsie Sioux and Chrissie Hynde were permanent fixtures….I used to have to break up fights between Siouxsie and American girlfriend of mine who was 6’2” and she and my friend always used to get a bit drunk and start sparring off and I’d have to step in between them, but apart from that it was really quite friendly due to the enormous amounts of drug inhalation going on!”

WHOLE ARTICLE AND MORE HEAVENLY PIX: PONYSTEP