“The company has had to make the difficult decision to close with immediate effect”
Legends in Brighton has instructed an insolvency firm to help wind down its business, a statement released today has said.
Since the outbreak of coronavirus, thousands of businesses across the UK shuttered indefinitely with many now struggling to stay financially viable with no customers.
The venue, which was a hotel, club, bar and restaurant on the Brighton seafront issued a short statement on its website, stating,
“The company has had to make the difficult decision to close with immediate effect and a licensed firm of Insolvency Practitioners has been instructed to assist in placing the company into Creditors Voluntary Liquidation. Therefore, no further bookings can be made”.
It also suggested that those who had pre-existing bookings should contact their credit card providers to check if they were eligible for a refund.
The UK has been in lockdown since the end of March and the Government ordered that all bars, restaurants and clubs close, except where they could provide takeaway services.
The closure of this legendary venue is yet another blow to the LGBT+ community which has seen the widespread of Pride events planned for this summer cancelled or postponed.
Organisers of Brighton Pride responded to the news of the closure by saying that the venue, had been “sad news… such a big supporter of Pride and community fundraising in our city over the years”
The company “sincerely apologised for the inconvenience” that was caused by its decision to close.
We are living in difficult times and are looking for TV shows to bring feelings of unity, warmth and nostalgia. Well, The Boys from the Dwarf are here to provide you with just that.
Still floating in deep space after three million + years and 32 years in linear time the team of Lister (Craig Charles), Rimmer (Chris Barrie), Cat (Danny John-Jules) and Kryten (Robert Llewellyn) come across a situation that brings the past back with a bang and teaches them a valuable lesson about unity.
Three million years ago… David Lister, a vending machine repairman, was sentenced to eighteen months in suspended animation for smuggling his pregnant cat aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf. While Lister remained in stasis, a radiation leak killed the rest of the crew. Safely sealed in the hold, the cats evolved into humanoid form who worshiped Lister (or Cloister as they call him) as their god. Many of the cats left the Dwarf to explore the universe, kept evolving, and now roam deep space in a fleet of their own. Over the centuries some cats kept their believe in Lister and some moved on.
Fleeing from a disaster of their own the Dwarfers meet three cat clerics (Tom Bennett, Mandeep Dhillon, Lucy Pearman) who still worship Lister as their God. Feeling responsible Lister vows to help them when he finds out they are being hunted by Rodon, the ruthless feral cat leader (Ray Fearon) who has vowed to punish all Cats who worship anyone but him. Trying to protect the cats leads the Dwarfers into some of the most complicated situation they have ever found themselves in, all while also dealing with issues of their own. The passage of time and living an isolated life away from any other life forms has proven difficult for Lister especially. Kryten and Cat are trying to counsel him without much success. Thankfully the arrival of the Cat people provide him with a sudden purpose.
Meanwhile Rimmer, the hologram, is intent on embracing middle age and just letting everything be. Receiving an unexpected upgrade changes his mind and outlook on life. Sadly it’s consequences soon drive him to despair. Seeing Rimmer so low and the others soon ganging up on him snaps Lister out of his own low mood. He knows he needs Rimmer and wants to help him. This leads to one of the deepest conversations between the pair in years, brilliantly acted by Chris Barrie and Craig Charles. Knowing each other and the characters for so long they know what they are doing and the conversation rings true and feels rather emotional.
Needless to say, the Dwarfers are faced with many difficult situations along the way as they discover more and more about the myth of Cloister and a mythical holy artefact that could save them all. Also, the Cat has a difficult choice to make when united with his people.
Red Dwarf the Promised Land has the perfect mixture of adventure, humour and emotion, it’s journey ending on a very satisfying note with a message the world needs right now.
Good news for any people new to Red Dwarf: you can step right in, as a pre-credits sequence brings you right up to date. Why not join the biggest experts on self-isolation out there!!
Red Dwarf The Promised Land: Thursday April 9th – 9pm, on Dave.
Red Dwarf fans solved a series of codes to unlock the first five minutes of the new Red Dwarf special, The Promised Land.
Watch the full feature length special Thursday 9th of April at 9pm, and until then, enjoy! pic.twitter.com/CMN6yazbOz
Hey, want to forget all that is happening in our world and go to a Rave? Well, perhaps the new film Ravers is for you.
Why attend an online rave on Zoom where all you see are faces when you can actually watch a real wave (digitally of course), a rave which combines all the right elements: excellent music, being illegal, millennials, drugs, and said millennials turning into zombies.
‘Ravers’ is the wave you crave but it’s also a film with an excellent soundtrack – for real! The story is basic. Poor Bucky (Georgia Hirst), a budding journalist who has not quite found a great great story to write about. And while she’s not the most social of butterflies amongst her circle of friends, she’s convinced to go to an illegal rave in an abandoned factory that used to produce energy drinks. Years ago there was an incident at the factory where one of the employees went on a killing spree. So no guess where this film is going as once the rave kicks in, a stash of the energy drink is found (which was contaminated) and is passed out to the ravers.
But the drink doesn’t give the ravers energy (there are all drugged up anyway), it turns them into flesh-eating killing zombies. So Becky and her friends who didn’t drink the substance are all trapped inside the factory (someone has blocked the only entrance) and there is no way out. As the music goes on (the D.J. is killed but one of the zombies – a wannabe DJ – takes over the turntables and pumps it up), the real people must run around the factory trying to save their lives while also trying to think of a way to quiet the zombies. Becky, meanwhile, tries to rescue her love interest Hannah (Manpreet Bambra) from zombiedom. Will they get out? Are they able to get the zombies to turn into normal loud obnoxious millennials again?
Ravers, with a tagline ‘party like there is no tomorrow’ pretty much sums up the situation we are all in. It’s a fun movie not to be taken too seriously, and while it’s not awful, the music in this film is awesome – much more enjoyable than the film itself! But at only 90 minutes it’s much more enjoyable than being part of an online rave.
However, attend at your own risk – and make sure there are no energy drinks or millennials around!
Netflix has become a bit of a home for the Drag world, especially with its commitment to stream lots of RuPaul content… So what other drag queen shows are worth the watch?
Paris Is Burning
Paris Is Burning is a must-watch film about the 80’s and 90s voguing scene in New York. Deeply emotional and insightful viewing and a slice of drag, trans and LGBT+ history. Not to be missed.
This has pretty much become a staple for Netflix and has helped cement RuPaul as the world’s most bankable Drag Queen. It currently has 12 seasons of the show available to stream. Catch up with all your favourite DQs from Bianca Del Rio to Trixie Mattel.
RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked
Next from the RuPaul treasure trove of content is Untucked. Although there’s only one season of this, but the reality show gives you the chance to go “backstage” and get all the juicy gossip.
RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars
A chance to catch up with your favourite queens from past seasons. Netflix only carries season 4 of the show, but if you need more RuPaul – then you can always watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-Slay Spectacular.
RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-Slay Spectacular
What’s camper than Christmas? RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-Slay Spectacular is. Watch as Latrice Royale, Shangela and Kim Chi battle it out to become the number 1 Christmas queen.
Dancing Queen
Drag Race star Alyssa Edwards rules the dance school and the night clubs in this warts and all, fly on the wall reality series. Reality TV at its cattiest.
Pose
Set in 1987, this drama series follows Blanca as she starts her own house. Starring Billy Porter and Evan Peters. Created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuck and Steven Canals.
Super Drags
Campy, adult animated series with drag queens saving the gay community for an evil nemesis.
Trixie Mattel Moving Parts
Drag Queen superstar Trixie Mattel allows the cameras into her life to document the highs and lows, post-RPDR in this intimate film.
The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson
As she fights the tide of violence against trans women, activist Victoria Cruz probes the suspicious 1992 death of her friend Marsha P. Johnson. An emotional documentary film about one of the un-sung heroes of the Stonewall movement in New York.
Imagine being trapped, held against your will, in a house and a neighbourhood that is weird and creepy. Actually that’s our reality right now, but take it one step further and imagine that there is simply no escape – and what you have then is Vivarium.
Vivarium literally means an enclosure, container, or structure adapted or prepared for keeping animals under semi-natural conditions for observation or study or as pets; like an aquarium or a terrarium. In the new scary and disturbing science fiction movie Vivarium, Tom and Gemma (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) are being observed, studied, but by whom they, nor we, don’t know.
Before this, they were just a young ordinary couple looking for a house to buy. Gemma was a teacher, while Tom was a DIY man. But one day they walk into a real estate agents office and meet an odd, clean-cut and crisp robotic salesman named Martin (Jonathan Aris) who is more than happy to show them a house at a development called Yonder.
Once they get there, everything looks and seems perfect; homes all alike in an environment with round clouds and blue skies, while the house Martin shows them is perfect, almost too perfect. But Martin disappears while Gemma and Tom are looking around the home, and they get into their car and realize there is no escaping the neighbourhood. It’s then that their young idyllic future turns into a nightmare as they are forced to live in the house in which they can’t escape from, where food, and a baby boy, are delivered right to their doorstep, to create one happy family.
‘Vivarium’ shows a young couple right at their most vulnerable, put in a situation they simply just can’t escape from. Director and writer (with Garret Shanley) Lorcan Finnegan has a keen eye for detail, and as the mystery builds, so does the nightmare of the whole situation. Without being bloody and violent, Vivarium, is just downright scary, but more chillingly as perhaps because it seems all too real.
Vivarium is available on the following digital platforms:
iTunes/Apple TV Amazon Sky Store Virgin Google Play Rakuten BT Playstation Microsoft Curzon Home Cinema BFI Player
Blu Hydrangea is already known to be one talented and shady queen from her time on season one of Drag Race UK, but her new Tik Tok video takes the shade up another level after she flawlessly reenacts that famous reading from The Vivienne to Divina DeCampo about her red hair and silver dress.
Blu uses one of the most ferocious takedowns in the entire series where The Vivienne says to Divina,
“To be 100% honest with yer, now that I’ve seen you here, you are twenty times the drag queen you are in the outside world.
“Because in the last 10 years I’ve seen Divina in a red wig and a silver dress.
To which Divina comes back with, “Bullsh*t, a red wig and a silver dress? I don’t think”.
Blu Hydrangea shows just how epicly savage she can be!
That entire scene is now reacted in glorious Tik Tok fashion with Blu miming along, applying perfect makeup wearing a red wig and silver dress.
” If you can work the clubs, you can work anywhere”
One of the UK’s favourite Drag Queens, Fanny Burns is celebrating 20 years in the business. The Weston-Super-Mare Pride hostess shared the cutest throwback photos and memories of her as “Matt Lewis” at the tender age of 15 and 17, including how he used to sell CDs for a fiver out the back of his dad’s Fiat Punto!
Taking to Instagram she said,
“So pre drag … many moons ago, I spent 4 years on the midlands ‘Club and Pub’ scene under the name ‘Matt Lewis’
Talking about the throwback pictures on Instagram she added, “On the left was the year 2000 – aged 15, and the right 2002 having just recorded my second CD, which we sold out the back of my dad’s Fiat Punto for a fiver after shows.
“Hardest Gigs”
The queen also shared that although the audience wasn’t always the most receptive, the clubs were a “worthwhile stomping ground” adding that if you could “work the clubs, you can work anywhere”.
She added, “These were some of the HARDEST gigs …. no sat navs, no social media, and a crowd that would make Simon Cowell look like a ‘Kids Party Clown’.
A hard, but worthwhile, stomping ground. If you can work the clubs, you can work anywhere.
This in mind, 2020 I celebrate 20 years of being an Entertainer, I’m blessed to have made a life out of being on stage
Georgia, where the LGBT population still face challenges, is the setting of the gay love story And Then We Danced, which is very good thanks to a great script, and great directing and acting.
Swedish Director Levan Akin’s (he is of Georgian descent) film is about young men of the National Georgian Ensemble where the typical dance routines are more masculine in nature.
Levan Gelbakhiania plays Merab. He desperately wants to dance for the main ensemble but is still struggling at the junior level, and is given great support by his partner Mary (Ana Javakhishvili). Merab lives with his mother, grandmother and lazy brother, all in a flat where money is hard to come by and where the electricity gets turned off because the bill is not paid.
One day a new dancer, Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) joins the junior ensemble, and soon enough he and Merab are among the few who have been chosen to audition for the main ensemble – both of their dreams. But on a weekend away with other dancers, Mareb and Irakli finally get to act on the chemistry that they had when they first met. But with the audition days away, and bad news from back home which might impact Irakli’s chances, will their new found relationship survive?
When And Then We Danced premiered in Georgia, it was met with protests and violence. But it’s an achievement, both in it’s telling of a gay love story in a country where gay love stories don’t exist (it’s also a story about forbidden love), and an achievement in film because the story is beautifully told (written by Akin), and the acting is realistic by two leads who had no acting experience prior to this film.
A must film to watch while you pass the time away at home.
The BFI Flare film festival, the annual LGBT+ BFI film festival in London has released lots of free archive content from the BFI National Archive, giving viewers an unprecedented view into the history of LGBT+ life in Britain from the early 20th century onwards. It will be available to watch until the 30th March 2020.
The line up of over 40 films includes news coverage of the AIDS epidemic, the politics surrounding gay and lesbian people as well as documentaries of celebrities such as Larry Grayson and Quentin Crisp.
BFI Flare at Homewill sit alongside great short work from BFI Flare Five Films For Freedom short films, made available in partnership with the British Council to roll out over 10 days from Friday 20th March. The BFI’s existing collection of favourites from previous BFI Flare Festivals, much loved queer film classics, and the free BFI National Archive curated LGBT Britain on Film Collection, will also be available, giving access to over 230 films in total.
The new BFI Flare at Home programme will be available to be enjoyed in the safety of homes around the UK via BFI Player, the BFI’s VOD service. A special offer for BFI Player’s subscription service will be offered to audiences who had booked for BFI Flare, with general audiences invited to sign up for a free two week trial of BFI Player as well as existing BFI Player subscribers to take advantage of the enhanced BFI Flare collection. Most content will be available as part of the SVOD collection, with some additional titles available for rental/TVOD.
Have you ever wanted to take to the interstates of America in a vehicle of your choosing and explore the land of the free? That is exactly what author Alex and good friend Vince did with a few twists and turns more worthy of most tricky off-roading courses for any 4×4 out there.
With the idea set into their minds in somewhere in 1998 where our intrepid travellers met as office workers, it wasn’t until much later that the idea started to become a reality when it was discovered Vince needed to be in Utah for a wedding. A plan to travel coast to coast across America in 2 Jeeps taking in as many national parks as they could was hatched.
The twist, to import 2 UK righthand drive Jeeps to the starting line in Connecticut. The turn was to turn their UK road-ready Jeeps into weapons for the broken tracks they would encounter in the USA. The reasons for this was in the economies of scale it simply proved to be far more economical to have the Jeeps modified in the US by a company that had access to the many Jeep parts needed. And for the love of the mechanical appliance, there is something quite emotive about taking your own vehicle on holiday.
So Alex (and Vince) starts the tale with a fraught check-in at Heathrow and cutting it to the wire with an unforgiving schedule that doesn’t stop over the next 17 of the 18 chapters, 222 pages and 5572 miles across 15 states of America.
Interspersed within the book are the joyless searches for various motels, the fact that Vince can’t handle his alcohol, the vast array of pancakes eaten and a nice touch of historical relevance to the places visited. It’s these little historical touches that help mark this out to be not another ‘man drives across America’ book. The chapters themselves are relatively short being around a dozen or so pages each and this is broken down into the journey, little snippets of fun in the narrative that carry the reader from one State to another.
With all States having their own peculiar ways not just in rules of the road but the local constabulary, the unfathomable way fuel is distributed and some of the crazy laws of the local eating establishments. It makes for an easy and interesting read like Alex is with you telling you the story first hand in a pub garden.
“Two Jeeps” makes for a lovely travel companion too. It also goes some way into doing the route leg-work if this is something you planned on doing yourselves. You can access this from the website www.twojeeps.com. Fear not however because nothing about the book or the journey is given away on it.
Within the chapters come the reason why they went through all they did to get here. To drive through the various national parks with their breathtaking views in vehicles capable of a lot more. The main focus for this comes halfway through the book but it is here were the short travelog of stories could be somewhat elaborated into a more in-depth talk about the surrounding land and the perilous passes endured. That is my only criticism of “Two Jeeps”.
The ending is coming close for them and you the reader at chapter 15. In Hollywood fashion, they must depart Moab as a storm of unknown magnitude is brewing that could be seen in the distance and there are still over 700 miles to travel.
So did they make it out past the storm and into LAX on time to depart for Blighty? The Cherokee had given trouble motoring along the way while the Wrangler had been free of problems. It would be telling to give away the outcome over the last 3 chapters but it is here that the reading intensifies to the books ends. So I suggest you buy the book and find out for yourself.
Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook from most notable online book retailers, including Amazon. More information on the website www.twojeeps.com
Only a few more weeks until the return of Red Dwarf on Dave, not in sitcom form this time, but a massive movie-style special called: Red Dwarf The Promised land.
Over the last few days, we have been teased with cast pictures, a teaser trailer that tells us big things are afoot and today the poster was revealed. It’s all looking good!!
None of these revelations, though, caused as big a stir as the single new picture that was revealed of the series resident hologram Arnold J Rimmer (Chris Barrie).
He is expected to receive an upgrade in the special that has him looking rather … different.
A lot of fans were shocked by the change from his usually smart look, but many rather appreciated the change as well. What do you think?
Meanwhile here is the trailer and our info on the special so far, from he official synopsis:
The new 90-minute special is the thirteenth outing of the legendary sci-fi comedy. It reunites the original cast of Chris Barrie (Rimmer), Craig Charles (Lister), Danny John-Jules (Cat) Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) and sees the return of Holly (Norman Lovett) the much-loved ship’s computer. Written and directed by Doug Naylor, it was recorded in front of a live studio audience over two nights at the world-famous Pinewood Studios.
Three million years ago… David Lister, a vending machine repairman, was sentenced to eighteen months in suspended animation for smuggling his pregnant cat aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf. While Lister remained in stasis, a radiation leak killed the rest of the crew. Safely sealed in the hold, the cats evolved into humanoid form. The cats now roam deep space in a fleet of their own…
The special will see the posse meet three cat clerics (Tom Bennett, Mandeep Dhillon, Lucy Pearman) who worship Lister as their God. Lister vows to help them as they’re being hunted by Rodon, the ruthless feral cat leader (Ray Fearon) who has vowed to wipe out all cats who worship anyone but him.
