Cultural satirist Fran Lebowitz addresses gay rights, celebrity culture and tourists in live Derbyshire presentation

The author will share her cutting take on anything and everything : from being expelled from her high school for being a bad influence to writing a column for Andy Warhol’s magazine.

An Evening with Fran Lebowitz, touring to Buxton Opera House on April 19, 2023, will see the cultural satirist in pointed, forthright and opinionated form as she offers her hilariously dry social commentary on American life.

Fran has been doing live Q&A sessions for nearly four decades. She said: “I don’t ever allow the interviewer to discuss the questions with me beforehand. I want to be surprised by the questions. Lots of people who do this ask for audience questions to be written down on index cards so they can choose which they want to answer. But I want the opposite. You never know what people are going to ask, and that is why I enjoy the audience questions the most. Whatever the audience wants to talk about, that’s what I talk about. So I don’t prepare at all. My preparation really consists of drinking coffee.”

Prior to the Q&A format of her presentation, Fran would give readings from her books. She said: “In San Francisco, I was doing these readings all the time and said to the woman who ran the series: ‘I’m sick of reading this book, why doesn’t someone interview me on stage?’ She said: ‘Like a television talk show?’ I said: ‘Kind of, but with a journalist, as opposed to a talk show host, because there’s a big difference between the two.’ I took questions from the audience – any audience would like that, so it worked out. Now, everyone does this, but I believe I was the first."

Lebowitz’s recent Netflix documentary series directed by her good friend Martin Scorsese, Pretend It’s A City, was an unmitigated hit with its offering of a tantalising snapshot of New York in full bloom, along with Lebowitz’s lively and unapologetic commentary on what it means to live there.

Tickets from £33.50, go to www.buxtonoperahouse.org.uk