Hoyle's work has often focused on themes in the LGBTQ community, attacking what he sees as dominant trends in "bourgeois Britain and the materialistic-hedonistic gay scene".

[1] Born into a lower-middle-class background in Layton, Blackpool, Lancashire, Hoyle was heavily bullied for his homosexuality as a child, leading to a mental breakdown aged fourteen.

It was here that he began performing at gay clubs in the city in the early 1990s, eventually developing the character known as The Divine David, an "anti-drag queen" who combined "lacerating social commentary" with "breathtaking instances of self-recrimination and even self-harm.

Over the next few years he continued with a string of shows, most of which were held at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, and which included Magazine (2007), Dave's Drop-In (2009), Licking Wounds (2010) and Lives (2011).

"[5] It was around the same time that he began performing in the Belle Vue, a pub in Blackpool, where he did comedy routines whilst in the character of Paul Munnery-Vain (the name being a pun on pulmonary vein), the illegitimate offspring of the Duke of Edinburgh and Dorothy Squires.

Here he temporarily gained a job playing the role of hunchbacked butler Riff-Raff in a stage production of The Rocky Horror Show, although was forced to quit when his alcohol and illegal drug intake got out of control.

However, it was during the 1980s that the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit the gay population and with little education or medical treatments, several of his friends' contracted and died of the virus; "people started to drop like flies.

[6] Hoyle began appearing as a character whom he called 'The Divine David', which would later be described by reporter Ben Walters as "a sort of anti-drag act caustically lamenting the narcissism of the gay mainstream... through song, dance, painting and whatever else took his fancy.

"[8] Suffering a nervous breakdown,[13][14] Hoyle gained most of his satisfaction from helping out his neighbours at their local housing association-backed communal garden, finding that being amongst plants aided his mental recovery.

[8] Emerging from five years as a recluse, in 2005 Hoyle appeared in the Channel 4 sitcom Nathan Barley, written by television satirists and comedians Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris.

[8] In 2007, Hoyle launched a new ten-part show at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, produced by fellow avant-garde performer Duckie, entitled Magazine.

Describing the show to a reporter, he commented that it was "loosely inspired by a psychiatric daycare centre, and all the activities that go on, from occupational therapy to hobbies to empowerment, group catharsis.

"[2] Spread over a series of six Thursday nights, in each show Hoyle collaborated with a different performer to explore a variety of topics; for instance with burlesque comedian Fancy Chance he dealt with nationalism and immigration whilst with Dickie Beau he looked into the theme of childhood.

Entitled Theatre of Therapy and directed by Nathan Evans, it involved Hoyle interviewing audience members whilst sitting on a couch that once belonged to pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) when the latter had lived in Hampstead, North London.

Standing as a representative of the Avant-Garde Alliance Party, he proclaimed that, should he come into power, he would advocate killing local priests and other authority figures to bring about "a new way, a new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of responding.

Furthermore, he argued for an overhaul of the workplace system, encouraging people to adopt a "spiritual dimension" to their jobs, and called for the abolition of the arms trade, with weapons factories being converted into social housing.

[21][22] Journalist Paul Vale of The Stage noted that it was "something of a departure" from Hoyle's earlier work, and that he was "almost sanitised" in his behaviour, providing "a healthy dialogue with his audience", discussing his "progressive views on education and a tongue-in-cheek dissection of avant-garde performance art, but mostly the chit-chat is either friendly or amiably abusive.

[24] In December 2012 Hoyle returned to the Soho Theatre with a stage show collection of songs written with Richard Thomas, covering a variety of topics raging from 'Gays in the Military' to the scandals of the BBC over the ages.

A fierce and vocal supporter of LGBTQ rights, Hoyle has publicly stated that should he ever be in a position of political power, "I would remove anyone who's vaguely homophobic to a concentration camp outside the M25, where they could keep each other company until such time as it was deemed appropriate for them to be dispatched.

"[22] Nonetheless, Hoyle remains highly critical of the mainstream gay culture in Britain, believing it to be "off-the-peg" and generic,[2] and describing it as "the biggest suicide cult in history".

[1][8] In his work he has attempted to fight against the idea that gay people are, "not socialist, not political, not left-field, just as pathetic and ridiculous as anybody else, that we couldn't give a fuck about anything as long as we can listen to Kylie and go shopping.

The Skinny, Posted by Paul Mitchell: David Hoyle – Still Really Rather Divine The Times, Interview by Nancy Durrant: Comedian David Hoyle is no drag Gay Icons Performance at the National Portrait Gallery Archived 8 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine The Independent, Interview by Nancy Groves: Observations: Freud family sofa's takes a starring role in Theatre of Therapy