THEGAYUK

Category: Entertainment

  • FILM REVIEW | The Last Impresario

    ★★★★ | The Last Impresario

    Gracie Otto’s affectionate documentary on the charismatic and adventurous English theatre and film producer Michael White is a movie long overdue. Despite his enormous contribution in a prolific career that spanned three decades he is as Anna Wintour succinctly put it, ‘the most famous person that you’ve never heard’. Ms Wintour also so accurately summed up his rich and tumultuous career by describing him as ‘a true Renaissance man’.

    Michael ‘Chalky’ White was born in Glasgow in 1936 to wealthy immigrant Jewish parents who packed him off to Boarding School in Switzerland at the tender age of 7. This small shy boy who suffered from asthma and couldn’t speak a word of French was something of a loner and although fiercely independent developed a skill in befriending everyone, a character trait that would end up changing his life.

    From Switzerland, he went to study at the Sorbonne which was followed by a stint as a Wall Street runner in the 1950s. Somewhere along the line this well-travelled young man discovered a passion for the theatre and landed himself a job with the impresario Peter Daubney in London producing international theatre seasons. At the ripe age of 25 White produced his first play in the West End. It was not a conventional drama but a production of Jack Gelber’s Living Theatre group called ‘The Connection’ and it depicted the life of drug-addicted jazz musicians. It had a mixed reception with its detractors up in arms about the debauchery on stage which showed men shooting up, something totally unheard of back in 1959 when every play was still censored by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.

    It was however not the last time that White would break all the rules as he pursued anything avant-garde and different than the norm in a career in which he mounted 101 stage productions and produced 27 films.

    He introduced London to art ‘happenings’ with Yoko Ono, contemporary dance with Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch, discovered the ground-breaking ‘The Rocky Horror Show’, joined forces with Kenneth Tynan to produce the all-nude review Oh Calcutta’, gave Barry Humphries aka Dame Edna Everage his first big break. Then as his career moved into movies he produced ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, John Water’s ‘Polyester’, and the classic ‘My Dinner with Andre’.

    Otto starts her movie almost at the end when after casually meeting White at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 she is intrigued about this charming septuagenarian who literally knows everybody worth knowing. And what’s more, they all totally adore him. From British royalty to the Hollywood A list via mega-rock stars to model superstars, White has hung out with them all, and many of them, including ex-wives and girlfriends, eagerly line up to give witness to all the joyous times they have spent together. Even Wintour the Ice Queen cracks a rare smile on her face when she talks about her times with White.

    White’s professional success (and sometimes failure) is because he is a gambler. Unlike any of his peers, he is happy to take a chance on people and their productions simply if he believes in them, almost in the same way that he bets on horses too. His personal ‘success’ is because he is an optimist and believes that everyone is his friend. ‘Some people have cheated me, but I have no enemies at all.’

    Now after a couple of strokes, although White refuses to acknowledge the ageing process, he is obviously not in a good shape physically or financially. Whilst he is happy to talk about his life (with the rare exception such as losing the lucrative rights to The Rocky Horror Show) he adamantly refuses to let Otto in to find out much about him as a man. Several colleagues drop very broad hints that part of his present demise is due to not just the excessive partying but the use of recreational drugs, but Otto chooses not to pursue any of this.

    His legacy will not just be all the thousands of photographs he took to chronicle his life with a whole galaxy or stars, or the correspondence with the rich and famous that he had hoarded for decades. It will be the way that his approach of leading with his heart and not his head completely propelled London into being a true world-class stage and discovering and giving a voice to such a remarkable array of talent. It also helped that he was also a professional charmer.

    The world is definitely a better place because of Michael White, the like of whom we will never see again.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Woman In Black, Sheffield Lyceum Theatre & National Tour

    ★★★★★ | The Woman In Black, Sheffield Lyceum Theatre & National Tour

    et in an old theatre in the late 1950’s, a solicitor, Arthur Kipps, enlists the assistance of a young actor to tell his story. His tale revolves around a terrifying incident when he was younger, when he travelled to the Eel Marsh House to settle the estate of a long standing deceased client. Initially finding a conspiracy of secrecy from the locals, he makes his way across the Nine Lives Causeway, which is cut off at high tide. Alone in the mansion, he is plagued by the sound of a pony and trap, an unexplained banging noise and a door which appears to be locked from the inside. What secrets does the estate hold, what lurks in the swirling mist… And who is the woman in black he keeps seeing?

    This chilling and effective ghost story is beautifully crafted and used simple techniques to create an immensely taught atmosphere in the theatre. The lighting design in particular was exceptional. Who would have thought that a dark stage with just a door highlighted would draw worried mumblings from those around you? This is a theatrical experience like no other.

    The production slowly cranks up the tension, which quite literally draws you to the edge of your seat and then throws you back into it with “cattle prod” jolts that elicited genuine screams of terror from the audience. The narrative of the piece completely draws you in; and the production avoids spoon feeding you the story, leaving you as the audience to create your own horrors in your imagination. The set, staging and props were remarkably effective in their simplicity and created an atmosphere where you held your breath with the central character as he explored the darkness. Setting the show in a theatre made you instantaneously part of the production and the dark atmosphere and low level lighting only add to the gloominess and intimacy of the piece.

    The performances from the two leads were both excellent, with Matt Connor playing the part of The Actor and Young Kipps, and Malcolm James providing the elderly Kipps and the other characters he comes across. It came as a surprise just how effective a simply staged double hander could be and the way in which the audience is manipulated via the events unfolding on stage is testament to the outstanding writing behind the show.

    This show is not akin to the recent film, so those expecting the Daniel Radcliffe version will be disappointed. It is faithful to its original source material, the book by Susan Hill. If anything, it is more reminiscent of “The Haunting” (1963) which leaves everything to the imagination. Here, the effective equivalent of the tradition of sitting round an open fire and telling ghost stories proves that there is more to what is unseen than what is seen; and is an absolutely perfect pre-Halloween treat or a superbly chilling way to spend a dark, stormy winter evening.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Solomon and Marion, The Rep, Birmingham

    ★★★★ – Witty, Endearing, Unforgettable

    “Solomon and Marion” hits the studio theatre of The Rep with an edgy bang. Lara Foot’s play is set in the post-apartheid period, and the essence of her story transports us back twenty years. It does not seem too long ago, when racial differences were a hot topic in the Western World, but more so in South Africa.

    “Solomon and Marion” delivers a perspective from both sides: Solomon represents a poor black boy, whose family have died, and who is, on a daily basis, fighting for survival. Marion is a white and middle-class lady who, throughout the play, is writing to her daughter Annie who is living in Australia with “a very good accountant.” – She reminds us… constantly.

    For some time, Marion has felt a presence lurking in around her house. One day, Marion is rudely disturbed by a black boy, whom she claims has never met, but walks into her living room, uninvited. It turns out that she used to let him play in her pond as a young child, as she was good friends with his grandmother. A delightful and an endearing connection between them ensues with terms as: ‘My boy’ and ‘Ms Marion’ that make the audience smile with delight.

    Lara Foot created a masterpiece, where she assembles humour with anger; a melancholy and monumental revelation. When Marion sees Solomon wearing her deceased son’s yellow shirt, her reaction is heart-wrenching. She cries and says to Solomon: “You’ve ruined it.” Which may cause some controversy with subtext analysis: was Marion showing a racist streak? She very quickly recovers and begs Solomon to keep it.

    Dame Janet Suzman, who you might recall from watching The Singing Detective, delivers an astonishing and memorable performance. The way Janet embodies Marion with extremely well-thought of physicality and with an emotion that was as if Suzman had gone through the grief and isolation portrayed herself. Janet shines particularly at the end when she breaks down after finding out the truth of her son’s death.

    Khayalethu Anthony breaths a true embodiment of what it would have felt like to live in those harsh times. Anthony is an unexperienced actor by background, but on stage his talent matches the Dame’s, especially when enacting live the murder scene of Marion’s son. His method of talking in mother-tongue gave the play an element of outstanding sincerity.

    The lighting was an effective drama tool, as it aided with the transition between happy daytime, to lonely darkness where Marion would spend all night staring at nothing. The excellent way in which the light shone through the window and when it climbed the walls as the sun was rising. The set was a masterpiece, in naturalistic terms but also it managed to create a nostalgic place for Marion to reminisce the whole life she had spent, and the one she wants to die in.

    “Solomon and Marion” is at The Rep until 1st of November.

  • Panda has W**k Video Leaked!

    In a world where folk are obsessed with taking pictures of their bits or filming themselves during acts of self and mutual gratification then posting them online, or in some celebrity cases having them leaked, we were not surprised to find we’re not the only ones in the animal kingdom doing this!

    This horny panda apparently was caught enjoying some light masturbation after chomping on a bamboo stick, unaware he was being filmed on a motion camera out in the wild. Shot by the World Wildlife Fund and backed by some dreadful nineties porn music, we ask is any animals self-gratification videos safe from the eyes of the world?

  • FILM REVIEW | Tru Love

    ★★★★ | Tru Love

    When 60-year-old Alice comes to Toronto six months after becoming a widow, her daughter Suzanne a lawyer is too busy at work to be home to greet her mother.

    She asks her unemployed friend Tru to step in at the last minute to look after Alice but then is shocked when she later arrives home and find that the two women have very quickly bonded. When Suzanne goes back to the office again that night, Alice takes Tru out to dinner to thank her, and the conversation soon takes a very personal turn.

    Alice is fascinated to learn about 30-something-year-old Tru’s life as a commitment-phobic serial-bed-hopping lesbian’s seemingly carefree life. She admits to having similar feelings when she was young but confessed that back in those days one had either to get married or join a nunnery. This provokes Tru into joking that the latter would have been the same as being a lesbian. There is obviously an attraction between the two women, but both are afraid to act upon it.

    The relationship between Alice and Suzanne is, however, is tenuous, to say the least as if neither can deal with the other’s grief for the departed husband/father. When it is clear that Alice’s spirits are so lifted by just spending time with Tru, Suzanne steps in and meddles to try and ensure that she puts a stop to their budding relationship. It appears at first she is in denial that Alice could possibly be a lesbian, but it soon turns out that this lonely partnerless woman has another reason to resent Tru making her mother so happy.

    Tru on the other hand slowly realises that with this welcoming older woman she is capable of loving someone after all. Alice never doubts her feelings but in some wonderful scenes talking to her late husband (seen on screen) she does question if this invalidates her life to date as she has not been true to her own feelings.

    This very touching story is very much about the two women’s quite chaste love but also equally about Alice’s relationship with her own daughter which seems to have reached a very low point. It’s unexpected and sudden ending was not the best way to finish the story as it didn’t really seem to give closure to all of them, well, at least to the two younger women.

    It’s an entertaining spirited movie about a delightful May/December relationship. Shauna MacDonald who co-wrote and co-directed as well as playing Tru gave herself a part that could/should have done more, but she did at least enable Kate Trotter who superbly played Alice and was a sheer joy as so convincingly conveyed the spirit of a woman finally discovering herself.

  • ALBUM REVIEW | Röyksopp The Inevitable End

    ★★★★★ | Röyksopp The Inevitable End

    Like life, all good things come to an end, and for Norwegian electronica superstars that time is now, but fear not they are leaving with us with one last incredible album and a little hint that it’s not quite the last of them.

    Album opener “Skulls” is a futuristic slab of electro-pop, addicting, pulsing and voiced by an ethereal sounding pop robot that Daft Punk would be jealous of and it certainly sets the tone for the rest of album, ie euphoric cry-on-the-dancefloor anthems.

    Next up is a massively reworked version of the Robyn featuring “Monument” gone is the laid back chilled vibe of the original and in comes chunky synth riffs & throbbing beats, it sounds bigger and somehow more epic. “Sordid Affair” is next and it’s a polished little soft-dance number about heartbreak, following track “You Know I Have To Go” follows the same path but takes the tempo down a good few notches for a other worldly 3am walking back from the club on your own thinking about stuff experience.

    “Save Me” up next and takes that tempo back up a few and grows nicely into a rather sprawling melancholic love song, the tempo goes sky high next for album highlight “I Had This Thing” the very definition of a euphoric-cry-on-the-dancefloor anthem. Robyn makes her 2nd and final appearance on the short but not sweet violin enhanced bleepy swirls and swear word laden “Rong”

    The tempo remains firmly down for “Here She Comes Again” and “Running To The Sea” the latter is another superb piece of throbbing cry-on-the-dancefloor slice of melancholy euphoria, “Compulsion” is up next and it’s a big piece of dark undulating electronica, “Coup de Grace” is a sweeping electronic instrumental (the only one on the album) and it serves as a bit of an epic emotional build up to the last ever album track “Thank You” which is a touching pop robot voiced piano led little number, thanking us forever. *weep*

    Whatever the future holds for Röyksopp this last ever album is a fantastic way to say farewell and thank you for the music

    The Inevitable End is released Nov 10 2014 – Pre Order the album with the button below.

    Links: http://royksopp.com / https://www.facebook.com/Royksopp / https://twitter.com/royksopp

  • The First Gay Best Picture Oscar At Last?

    There have been openly gay writers, directors and actors that have won Oscars, but never ever a Gay Themed Best Picture Oscar.

    In 2005 BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN came close getting 8 nominations, the most of any film that year, and then winning 3 of them, but being pipped at the post for the ultimate award despite it being the hot favourite. Will 2015 be the year this all changes? Four countries have ‘officially submitted’ gay movies for BEST FOREIGN PICTURE nominations and we think they all have a good chance of winning. Here they are :-

    SAINT LAURENT from France. At last an un-sanitised version of the great French designer and somewhat tortured genius. Directed and co-written by Bertrand Bonello and starring hunky Gaspard Ulliel, it’s been wowing wowing audiences in France, and we cannot wait to see it.

     

    DER KRIES aka The Circle from Switzerland. This stunning and emotional account of gay life in Zurich post WW2 is part documentary and part fiction and will have you reaching for your tissues. Winner of a TEDDY AWARD at the Berlinale (which is the nearest thing to an LGBT Oscar).

     

    THE WAY HE LOOKS from Brazil. We have just published our 5 Star review of this film that opens in UK cinemas on October 24th. We unashamedly LOVE this touching tale of a blind gay teenager’s coming-out story which also won a TEDDY AWARD at this year’s Berlinale. We talked with Director Daniel Ribeiro when he was in London recently, so look out for our exclusive interview coming soon.

     

    MOMMY from Canada.This is technically not a gay film but we have included it as it is the work of gay wunderkin director/writer/editor/actor/composer/costume designer XAVIER DOLAN. This is his 5th award winning feature film at the ripe old age of 25 years old and it received an unprecedented 15 minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. In this film Dolan re-visits the tumultious mother-son relationship theme of his very first movie ‘I Killed My Mother’.

     

    All OSCAR NOMINATIONS are announced on Thursday 15th January, and the WINNERS on Sunday February 22nd 2015.

     

    By Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW | The Overnighters

    ★★★★ | The Overnighters

    After North Dakota introduced the controversial technology known as fracking in 2008 it suddenly became the nation’s second largest oil producing State.

    So as the economic recession started to kick in really hard over the next few years, thousands of unemployed men unable to find work in their part of the country flocked to the new oilfields hoping to secure jobs. Many ended up the city of Willaston which is located in the oil-rich region in the west of the state. Totally unprepared for job searching which could take some considerable time or at which they could fail as they were totally unqualified, many of these migrant workers ended up being homeless and destitute.

    Their one chance of surviving and making their dreams succeed lay in the hands of an extraordinary local Lutheran Pastor who mounted what turned out to be a one man band to help these men try and succeed and move on. Pastor Reinke knew that the City permitted people to sleep overnight in their own cars if they were parked legally, but for the people that had come by bus and train, he went one step further and opened up the church premises and allowed them to sleep on any floor space they could claim.

    This program called ‘the overnighters’ was started in the dead of winter and the church’s congregation went along with their leader’s plan assuming that when the spring came, the men would move out and on. But each day more and more men arrived seeking refuge and the trickle turned into a flood. The Pastor suggested that the men make a voluntary contribution towards their keep, but insisted on them submitting to a background check and also attending church.

    As this influx of cars and men impacted the neighbourhood and at the same, the crime rate also rose the local paper started to voice the concerns of the community and published a few damning pieces on the Pastor’s activities. In a badly thought out move he panicked and invited one of the men who had been a convicted sex offender to stay with his own family to take the heat off for a while… but when word got out, it was the start of the unravelling of the whole program and the Pastor’s own life.

    Director Jesse Moss was his own one-man crew when he filmed this in 2012/3 and he gets up close and personal in telling the intimate stories of some of the men that are passing through in the hope of a better life. And although their struggles simply to survive are a powerful indictment on the effects of the downturn of a global economy on ordinary working men, it is the Pastor’s own somewhat bewildering and incessant crusade that is the main focus here. Reinke is resolute in his sheer doggedness to offer these men shelter and hope despite the overwhelming objections of the City, and of his own congregation who are angry at being railroaded into giving their support to something they can no longer tolerate.

    The Pastor’s very blinkered approach to expecting all of his neighbours to act as he believes Christians too unfairly casts them as the devil’s advocate when the refuse to go along with all his plans, and he eventually pays the cost of pushing them all too hard. There is more than hint that he has his own troubled past and on one occasion when he sympathies with one of the men who is baring his tormented soul, he remarks that they have a lot more in common than the other man would think. There are also the tell-tale signs of sudden flares of anger when Reinke believes that anyone has betrayed his trust in him. And then when the chips are down at the end of the movie, Reinke shocks his placid wife (and us) with a surprising confession.

    Moss’s movie never steers shy from showing the sheer despair of these men, and even of their guardian angel too. This compelling feature length documentary is quite an eye opener, in every sense of the word.

    In UK Cinemas 31st October

  • FILM REVIEW | The Secret Path

    This new gay love story from a married couple of newbie filmmakers Daniel and Richard Mansfield is quite unique.★★★

    Essentially a two-hander, its the story of a pair of lovers in their late 20s who are on the run having deserted the British Navy in the early 1800s. Having come ashore near the rather lush grounds of the estate of an abandoned country house, the two men live ‘rough’ during the day whilst at night they dig up dead bodies to sell and get some funds to move on.

    In a script that is full of more holes than any net these ex-Mariners may have found at sea, we are never too sure why they do little beyond walking around in circles or just lying on the grass cuddling each other.

    They make out occasionally in a manner that one can only suggest that their clumsiness is due to being new to man-on-man sex, or that they are used to doing it on rough seas which gave them a natural rhythm. What is for sure is that the whole place is haunted, and in this supernatural thriller where Theo alone keeps seeing dead people, we know that it cannot possible end well for him or for his lover Frank.

    It’s a bold move making a gay period drama, especially on a micro-budget, and these two Brit filmmakers should be applauded for their valiant effort. The combination of the jerky hand-held cameras and an ominously eerie soundtrack go a long way to making this wee movie more watchable. The two very likeable actors, Darren Bransford & Henry Regan, do well with their parts but they, like the script could have so benefited with both more substance and better direction. The whole thin plot was far too stretched out and made one’s attention wander a little too often in the middle section in particular.

    This new movie is due to be premiered at the GayWise Festival in London in November but before that will be available on VOD/DVD at Amazon.

  • FILM REVIEW | You And The Night

    The opening sequence of French writer/director Yann Gonzalez debut feature starts with confusion that never really eases up through this avant-garde art-house film. ★

    CREDIT: Les Rencontres D’Après Minuit
    CREDIT: Les Rencontres D’Après Minuit

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  • Gay Rugby Hunks Sing Disney

    Members from the Manchester Village Spartans have other interests other than Rugby…

    Okay, some gay men just love a bit of Disney and these Rugger hunks show off their musical theatre talents… Particularly the dude in the blue cap – who is ON POINT with his lyrics. (Well done that man.)

    The lads say this is a singalong of Lion King’s I Just Can’t Wait To be King whilst they were returning from the touch tournament in Birmingham this weekend.

    The Manchester Village Spartans RUFC is Manchester and Northwest England’s gay and inclusive rugby union football team based at Sale Sports Club, Manchester.

    The club is a full member of International Gay Rugby Association and Board (IGRAB)