A walking tour through Liverpool L8 and Margate, led by drag artists as microorganisms.

Come with us and take a deep dive into hidden water histories, turning sewage into spectacle and cholera into cabaret across Liverpool and Margate’s shores.

Tracing the flow of microorganisms cholera and E. coli through Liverpool and Margate’s historical waterways, our performances reveal the intricate web of human relationships with this fluid resource. From the shared use of wells and washhouses to the impact of industrial pollution on communities, the project viscerally demonstrates how water has always been a social connector, shaping the fabric of urban life.

  • Cholera tour short stinger

    A Contagion of Transformation

    This project represents a new strain of social research – one that refuses to be quarantined in ivory towers. By embodying a microorganism through drag performance, the tour challenges audiences to think differently about bodies, boundaries and belonging in urban spaces.

    The 90-minute experience promises regular stops at points of intrigue, where scientific fact meets theatrical fiction, and where Liverpool’s past contaminations illuminate present-day struggles for reclaiming connected waterways, healthy communities and environmental justice.

    Symptoms Include: Uncontrollable Urge to Question Everything

    Audiences should prepare for side effects including – heightened awareness of water politics, sudden appreciation for drag as a research method, and an infectious desire to see their city through microbial eyes. Warning: this tour may cause permanent changes to how you live through Liverpool’s streets, contagion, waterways and the invisible networks that connect us all.

    The tour’s unique blend of social research and unapologetic performance creates something genuinely unprecedented – a theatrical vaccination against ignorance that’s as entertaining as it is enlivening.

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  • Cholera Walking Tour skinny

    What Happens When a Deadly Disease Gets a Drag Makeover and Takes Over the Streets of Liverpool?

    Cholera Walking Tour is an Infectious Blend of Drag, Science and Environmental Justice. Prepare for an outbreak of a different kind, as Liverpool’s streets will be contaminated with creativity as drag artist Auntie Climax embodies Cholera herself, leading audiences through the city’s hidden waterways and forgotten histories in the most provocative walking tour that will ever take over your body and imagination.

    “We’re not just performing history,” explains Liverpool Hope University Senior Lecturer Annalaura Alifuoco. “We’re diagnosing present-day symptoms of environmental injustice and offering a different kind of treatment – one that centres collective wellbeing, communal knowledge and joyful resistance.”

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  • Liverpool Tour Tickets On Sale

    We’re super excited to release the first tickets for our Liverpool cholera walking tour! Led by drag artist Auntie Climax as Cholera, join us to explore a microbial perspective of the city.

    July Friday 25/ Saturday 26/ Sunday 27

    Evening Tours : 6pm – 7:30pm. Get your tickets here!

    Saturday Morning Tour : 10am – 11:30. Get your ticket here!

    An interactive, playful and informative tour using ritual, storytelling and scientific research, the tour will last approximately 1.5hours, travelling between Liverpool Cathedral and Granby Four Streets, with regular stops at points of intrigue between.
    Co-created in collaboration with Toxteth L8 residents, members of Liverpool’s queer community, local historians, microbiologists and Granby Winter Garden.

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  • Celebrating Science and Self-Expression: The fourth LGBTQ+ networking event at the Microbiology Society’s Annual Conference

    Guest post by our microbiologist collaborator Rebee Penrice-Randal

    June is Pride Month; a month that celebrates and honours those within the LGBTQIA+ community and recognises their ongoing fight for equal rights and acceptance. During this year’s Annual Conference, held in Liverpool, UK, the Microbiology Society’s member-led group, Queer in Microbiology, hosted their fourth LGBTQ+ Networking Event, in collaboration with the collective artists group, Flow.Walk.Drag. Champion, Rebee Penrice-Randal, reflects on their experience at the event and the importance of such events in ensuring microbiology is inclusive and accessible to all.

    As Pride Month arrives, we reflect on our fourth LGBTQ+ Networking Event at this year’s Annual Conference in Liverpool; a space where identity, inclusion and scientific curiosity intersect. Over the years, this event has grown into a vital part of Conference; providing a welcoming environment for LGBTQIA+ scientists and allies to connect, share experiences, and explore the ways diversity enriches our field. The group have previously published their experiences of running an inclusive event at conferences.

    Event organisers

    Organisers of the LGBTQ+ Networking Event

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  • FWD at Pint of Science

    We’re excited to be part of Pint of Science Festival 2025! FWD will be at the Glitch in Waterloo on the 20th of May (Tuesday) alongside two other amazing speakers. Under the banner of Paths to Progress: Walking as a tool to reconnect us to our natural world, we will be sharing how walking can help us reconnect with nature, boost conservation efforts, and spark communities to take positive climate action and fight for ecological justice. 

    Sign up for your free tickets here.