The Moth Emerges: Carpet Muncher soars at the intersection of drag, spoken word and queer resistance

Amidst the hum of late-night cabarets and fringe experimentation, a lone figure emerges in glistening cloth and antennae. Half-moth, half-poet, Jo Morrigan Black’s Carpet Muncher is a solo spoken word drag performance. Equal parts poetic ritual and theatrical transformation, it is a vibrant celebration of queer resistance, set to take flight at the 2025 Culture Ireland Edinburgh Showcase.

Morrigan Black describes themself as a writer, visual artist, and performance poet – three disciplines that, for them, are not separate threads but an interwoven cloth. “On stage, I’ve found a space and timeframe where my visual concepts, costume design, writing and physical theatre can all bring each other to life,” they explain. “I see poetry as an oral form, itching to inhabit all the senses.”

It is this multi-sensory impulse that drives Carpet Muncher, a performance steeped in the surreal and anchored by the figure of the Mothman: a cryptid born of 1960’s folklore and reimagined here as a symbol of queer otherness, metamorphosis, and survival. The title, a deliberate provocation, “announces my character as a queer pest and a nuisance, who will hungrily eat the carpet out from under your feet,” Morrigan Black laughs. It frames the show’s irreverent tone, without softening its emotional depth.

Though rooted in drag and spoken word, Carpet Muncher occupies a space far removed from cabaret stereotypes. Each poem in the performance is physically manifested through costume. Fabric is not just fashion but metaphor. All visual elements are made from thrifted or recycled textiles, many sourced from Morrigan Black’s own personal wardrobe. “The vulnerability of emptying out my closet is quite literal,” they say, “but it’s happening on my own terms, and using my own tricks.”

Morrigan Black’s journey through cities, from Paris to Bogotá, Berlin to Dublin, has left visible traces on their practice. The show is imbued with a strong sense of cross-border solidarity. “Moving to Bogotá, I was changed by the musical soundscape of protest. I saw silhouettes of disappeared activists being raised on the town hall steps,” they recall. These images of resistance, both quiet and spectacular, continue to inform the political undercurrent of Carpet Muncher.

The performance is described as an “intimate, frenzied call to celebrate the unknowable within us all” and for Morrigan Black, this celebration is inherently political. “Queerness can be subversive when it forces us to acknowledge the unknowable inside us all,” they say. “From transphobia to border control, the show explores why and how categorisation by the State becomes oppressive.” In its playful defiance of form and definition, Carpet Muncher becomes a meditation on what cannot (or should not) be neatly labelled.

As for the Mothman, Morrigan Black’s muse and mirror, he is both mythical and mundane. “In Dublin, I found out a ‘moth’ was also a girlfriend, so that added some nonbinary potential to the name,” they note with a smile. “My poem ‘Mothman Lives’ frames the show. It’s a hope, it’s this idea that mystery and enchantment persist, that the trans character survives at the end.

Carpet Muncher may be rooted in the specificity of queer experience, but it speaks in universal registers of loss, transformation, and the right to be strange. Morrigan Black hopes the audience will leave with “some burning questions for themselves, and an excitement, a readiness for change. I want to make the atmosphere intimate, surprising in a slowly delightful way.”

As a queer artist, being selected for the Culture Ireland Edinburgh Showcase is not just an accolade, but a vital form of access. “I’m very grateful to Culture Ireland for believing in my one-moth show. Their support is the only way coming to Fringe has been possible for me,” they say. “Creatively, it means the world to see that a show without a classic plotline can still be supported and showcased. This grant empowers me to continue in a strange poetic direction in the future.”

After Edinburgh, Carpet Muncher will return to Irish soil with a tour that includes Siamsa Tíre. Morrigan Black also dreams of bringing the show back to Paris, where “its very first chrysalis was formed.”

For other queer artists hoping to blend disciplines, Morrigan Black offers pragmatic encouragement: “Don’t overthink it and start by making it. All of the questions and the solutions will emerge, once they have something to emerge from.” They advise performing in different rooms, to different audiences, and letting the work change each time. “At some point, your hybrid performance will take on a life of its own. Be kind to it. Listen to what it has to say.”

You can see Carpet Muncher live at the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 7th – 12th August. Tickets and more information here.