Mr Brake Down
Cabaret and drag performer Kim Finn has found the continuous cruiser lifestyle restorative in contrast to the bright lights of the stage. But he can’t fix your engine…
I’m a continuous cruiser going here, there and everywhere on the Shropshire Union Canal. I work as a cabaret and drag artist under the stage name Mr Brake Down, largely in Chester, and finally took the plunge into the boating life in December 2023 when I bought my narrowboat Doom & Glitter.
Living on the water is something that I’d been thinking about for years having been on a boat exactly once before. It belonged to a friend many, many years ago and I absolutely fell in love with it. I had a go at steering for about ten minutes and thought it was pretty easy.
It was a bittersweet mixture of events that gave me the push to explore boating. I came into some money in 2022 when I unfortunately lost my grandmother and father in the same year. They were very dear to me and my father died suddenly, so that was a big turning point in my life and a huge catalyst for all sorts of change. One of the main things I did with my inheritance was to make sure that I had a roof over my head and I knew that I wanted to be on the water.
Boat-buying
I found the boat-buying process pretty straightforward. Everyone was really nice, especially in the local marinas in Cheshire. I had a very kind friend of mine who drove me around and we did a big marina day where I’d arranged some viewings. I saw six or seven boats all on the same day, and when I stepped aboard this one, which was called Coeur de Lyon at the time, I felt at home at once. There’s such a cosy feel to it, I just felt like it was the one.
It was all done and dusted in one day, more or less. Coeur de Lyon happened to be at the last place we visited: Swanley Bridge Marina. I’d seen a few that I thought were maybe contenders and I would need to go home and think about. After setting foot on this one, however, I went straight to the brokerage office and made the deposit on the same day.
It’s a 45ft narrowboat and needed a little bit of work before I could move on board in March 2024. There’s a boatyard at Swanley Bridge, so I was fortunately able to speak to people there. I had a solar panel fitted that was donated to me by a friend, and a new leisure battery. A few other things came up in the survey that I would have to tackle within the next 18 months but I wanted to be able to get out on the water and enjoy the summer. In the winter of 2024, I booked it in for the full works.
Renovations
The boat needed a lot of TLC on the exterior – I called it my little rust bucket for the first few months after moving on board. I sanded down the paintwork with just one or two friends at a time helping me to get rid of the rust and prime it for a new coat of paint. Then about 15 of my closest friends descended on the boat one weekend and we transformed it in one big painting party. It changed from a sort of wine-red and cream look to jet black in less than 24 hours.
The interior has needed less work as things like the bathroom and galley were in really good condition. One of the most satisfying jobs was lifting the old, rotten carpet running along the corridor and into the cabin and replacing it with new stick-on tiles. The only time I regret buying the boat is when I have to take apart the bed in order to get to the storage underneath where I keep all the costumes and props for my cabaret shows. I’d love to change that set-up so that it’s easier to access.
I immediately knew that I wanted to rename the boat when I first saw it but I was told really early on that it’s bad luck to do so while your boat is in the water. I’m not particularly superstitious but when you spend so much money on a floating home that contains your worldly possessions, you suddenly become a bit more wary. I waited until the beginning of this year when it came out of the water for re-blacking. Coeur de Lyon was fine and appropriate for starting out on my boating journey but I felt Doom & Glitter, which is the name of my long-running Edinburgh Fringe Festival cabaret show, was more reflective of me. The show is a bluesy, boozy tribute to Tom Waits, the Californian blues singer. Now the boat is jet black, I’m hoping that this summer a friend of mine who’s a muralist will be able to do the exterior decorating and signwriting in the style of the show.
Star of stage…
As a performer with lots of different projects underway, I have to plan very carefully where I’m going to moor. I might be back and forth to London or Edinburgh and while I’d love to travel by boat all the time, it’s really not practical. Luckily I have friends who can keep an eye on the boat for me if I’m going to be away for a couple of days for a gig. In the spring I was in a play right on my doorstep in Chester so I timed the last two weeks of rehearsals and the performance with city centre moorings. I didn’t want to be trying to get back to a rural mooring late at night after a busy show. I also have a LGBTQ cabaret show that I founded in Chester, which has been going for two years and will soon be running in London too, and I’m one of the lead guides for the Dead Good Ghost Tours in Chester, which take place over the autumn and winter.
My drag alter ego, Mr Brake Down, was created a few years before I became a boater – although I do occasionally feel like I’ve tempted fate. The name refers to the mental health process that you go through when you’re exploring gender, and the idea of breaking down those masculine stereotypes, poking fun at the idea of patriarchy. Just because I’m a trans man and identify as male, doesn’t mean I want to be part of that horrible boys’ club that’s taking over the world. I’m very much the same on the boat – one of my closest friends is a trans woman and she’s a dab hand and fixes everything in sight on board. Mr Brake Down does make it sound like I should be running a repair service but I’m worse than useless with that sort of thing – I haven’t managed to learn that aspect of boat-ownership yet.
…and screen
The first series of Narrow Escapes aired around the same time that I moved onto my boat last year. My mum was very concerned about me living afloat as I didn’t have much prior knowledge of boats, so she started watching it and sending me clips in case it was helpful. When I went for dinner one day she showed me a few of her favourite episodes, and I loved the cast of characters, the fun that people were getting up to and all the different boats and lives.
I thought that I’d certainly got a lot of weird and wonderful things going on as well as the renovation of the boat, which they might be interested in, so I emailed the production company directly. And it worked. I’m always very keen to collaborate with other creatives and it was a really wonderful partnership with the Narrow Escapes team. They’re such lovely people who are supportive of whatever projects you have going on and so keen to show you in the most joyful light that they can.
Real adventure
I’m an advocate for getting out of the rat race, especially if you’re a creative person. Living on a boat has been a re-inspiration for my career, having a life with new experiences every day, moving around even a relatively small part of the network. I thought about buying a boat for five years or more before I finally did it (although it’s a good job I didn’t do it in 2020 as I’d have been stuck alone on a boat during the pandemic). There are worries that people will put in your head about living on the water as it’s still seen as alternative, but I think as long as you’ve got a little support network around that you can go to for advice, you can throw yourself into it and learn as much as you can on the move.
My career means that I’m meeting new people all the time, so it’s those quiet moments at the tiller in the middle of nowhere that reinvigorate. You might see a stag on the edge of a forest, or cows that have escaped into the canal because of a broken fence. It’s these bizarre experiences in nature that inspire me for when I go back into the very busy world of lights, camera, action. Having that contrast in your life is really beautiful. Being covered in glitter and dressed up on stage is my work and I love it all but the real adventure is seeing the world, nature and all the things that we become disconnected from by social media and searching for the bright lights and fame.
For now my plan is to remain close to Chester, where my mum still lives. I try to do a circuit of about 25 miles so that I’m never terribly far from home. I’ve been as far as the Middlewich and Nantwich area one way and Ellesmere Port the other, and have certainly explored corners of the area that I’ve lived in for nearly ten years that I’d never seen before, places I didn’t know existed. Despite visiting all the major towns previously, since being on the boat I’ve found all these beautiful little villages in between them through the countryside. I’m very much a city boy, originally from Cardiff, so living on a narrowboat has been an education in the great outdoors for sure.
See more of Kim at instagram.com/mrbrakedown and on series two of Narrow Escapes, available to stream on channel4.com.