THEGAYUK

Category: Entertainment

  • Pride In Bournemouth Today – Bourne Free

    It’s looking to be a beautiful day in sunny Bournemouth for the 10th BourneFree LGBT Pride.

    So if you’re looking for something to do today that’s proud, we suggest you head on over to Bournemouth to celebrate Pride.

    The parade will be starting at East Cliff at 11:00am and finish at 12:00PM the full postcode is: East Cliff, Bournemouth BH1 3AF.

    As BourneFree is celebrating 10 years, the theme for the year is Decades.

    So come join us on Saturday 12th July from 11AM to watch an array of Floats, Busses & Walking Groups, fabulously decked out in our decades theme, parade through Bournemouth Town Centre. With 26 groups (43 sections in total) this years parade is promising to be our largest yet. For those who would like to be in the parade who are not part of an organised entry we have a large rainbow flag that needs to be carried along the route, just turn up by 10:50AM at the parade starting point on East Overcliff Drive (BH1 3AN). Bring water a smile and be ready to have lots of fun.

    Performing on the bandstand is: Katy Perry Dreams Mary Mac Showstoppers
    Carpentones Cinderz Pumpkin Soup
    Jazz Blaack BFGT runners up – Glitterati
    Tracie Redding Chicken Soup Choir
    Danielle Watson

    Hosted by Lea Martin, Sheila Tackya & Grace Lightning – Entertainment will go on until 4:30PM.

    Then it moves on to the triangle where you can see the likes of Misha B, Damage and Kimberley Watts. Wristbands are required for the triangle, these can be bought at the door for £10.

    – See more at: http://bournefree.co.uk/more-news-here-triangle-news/#sthash.7bKzVFxW.dpuf

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Daytona, Theatre Royal Haymarket

    ★★★ | Daytona, Theatre Royal Haymarket

    In a recent interview, Maureen Lipman said that this is ‘unquestionably the best role’ of her career and she’s not wrong. Lipman is jaw-droppingly stunning in the strictly limited season of Daytona at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

    Daytona is an intimate 3-hander show which tells a story of missed opportunities and what-ifs. Without sharing too much, an Elderly Jewish migrant couple Elli (Maureen Lipman) and Joe (Harry Shearer) are living out their twilight years ballroom dancing and going through the motions of a long and seemingly happy marriage. One evening, whilst Elli is getting last-minute alterations to her dancing dress, Joe’s brother, wild-haired and Hawaii shirt wearing, Billy (Oliver Cotton, who also wrote the play), knocks at the door, after a 30-year estrangement. He tells Joe that he has taken drastic action on a man from their past, he believes was a particularly violent and murderous Nazi during the war, whilst on his holiday, in Daytona.

    His regaling of the story takes up the majority of the first half and is longwinded. The true horror of the back-story fails to register fully – as Billy launches into monologues, so long that they had me looking at my watch. It’s not to say that the emotions weren’t there, but the importance and the investment in the story that an audience needs in the characters and their story are lost with the length of time it takes to get there. It felt as though the audience was lost during the swathes of dialogue.

    It’s not until the second act that the story becomes interesting and Lipman’s competence in ruling the stage is truly felt, reminding us of her abilities as a superb and subtle actor. If only it hadn’t taken so long to get there. There is a captivating monologue where Lipman opens up her character to show an emotionally bereft woman who has only just managed to cope with a life that was forced upon her. A romantic attachment, albeit brief, is quite breathtaking.

    Until 23 August. Box office: 020 7930 8800. Venue details: Theatre Royal Haymarket, London http://www.trh.co.uk

  • EVITA is returning to the West End

    Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s EVITA returns to London’s West End for a strictly limited season.

    Opening on Tuesday 16 September at the recently refurbished Dominion Theatre, the musical considered by many to be Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s masterwork will play for 55 performances only in the West End, with musical theatre and pop icon Marti Pellow playing Che, and extraordinarily talented newcomer Madalena Alberto in the title role.

    With more than 20 major awards to its credit, and the Oscar winning film version starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas, Evita has become iconic. It features some of the most memorable and best loved songs in musical theatre, including Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, On This Night of a Thousand Stars, You Must Love Me, and Another Suitcase in Another Hall. Evita charts the story of Eva Peron, wife of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron, from her humble beginnings through to the extraordinary wealth, power and iconic status which ultimately led her to be heralded as the ‘spiritual leader of the nation’.

    Marti Pellow, one of music’s most respected artists, plays Che, a character who reflects the voice of the Argentine people – linked to Eva by destiny; he brings conflict to the story of Eva’s rise to fame. For over 30 years Marti Pellow has enjoyed global success as the lead singer of Wet Wet Wet, as a solo artist, and now as one of the UK’s most acclaimed and respected leading men of musical theatre. Starring roles include The Witches of Eastwick, Chess, Jekyll & Hyde, Chicago and Blood Brothers. As a solo-singer, recording artist and with Wet Wet Wet, Marti Pellow has enjoyed virtually unrivalled chart success, with over 25 hits and three of the UK’s biggest number one singles, including the seminal Love Is All Around. In 2013, after 20 years apart, Wet Wet Wet reunited for a sell-out arena tour.

    Madalena Alberto’s musical theatre credits include the role of Piaf at the Curve Theatre and Fantine in the 25th Anniversary production of Les Misérables. Other roles include Lucy in Jekyll and Hyde, Carmen Diaz in Fame, Sam in Over the Threshold and Sonia in Godspell. The Portuguese singer-songwriter’s first album Don’t Cry For Me will be released to coincide with the opening.

    LISTINGS NEWS:
    ADDRESS – Dominion Theatre, 268-269 Tottenham Court Rd, London W1T 7AQ
    DATES – Tuesday 16 September – Saturday 1 November 2014
    TIMES – Mon – Sat @ 7.45pm, Thu & Sat @ 3pm, Mon 22 Sept @ 7pm
    TICKET PRICES – £25 – £65; Under 16s, £10 off top three prices Mon – Thu & Sat Mat
    BOOKING INFORMATION – www.dominiontheatre.com / 0845 200 7982

  • LGBT ally and anti-bullying activist Ben Cohen to star in The Cube

    Tonight two celebrities get to grips with the mighty Cube: twinkle toed rugby star Ben Cohen gives it his best try, and has the Cube met its match in EastEnders’ bad girl Charlie Brooks?

    LGBT Ally Ben Cohen is to star in tonight’s episode of The Cube on ITV1. Ben’s foundation, the StandUp Foundation fights to make bullying a thing of the past. It was started after his father was savagely killed.

    Speaking to TheGayUK in an interview in 2012, Ben Cohen said, ‘Basically, the road to where I am today, in many different respects is because, I got a phone call on Friday the 13th of all days and my dad had basically been beaten within an inch of his life protecting someone at a nightclub my brother owned. To cut a very long story short, he died a month later of his injuries. Stand Up day is now on November 14th, the day my dad died.

    ‘The day I announced that I was doing a cause, my fan page went up by 10,000 people instantly so the support is there and it’s needed because there is nobody else doing this. Having a cause and being nice to look at is a bonus really. It’s not about supporting me as a sex symbol, it’s about supporting the cause.’

    Ben Cohen is also well loved for his Underwear and Calendar shoots.

    Philip Schofield is presenting the show, which is on from 9PM.

  • REVIEW | Deborah Frances-White, Half a Can of Worms

    ★★★★★ | Deborah Frances-White, Half a Can of Worms

    Deborah Frances-White was adopted at ten days old and up until late October 2012 she had no idea who or where her birth family were.

    An extraordinary run of events meant that she was suddenly living as a round the clock internet Nancy Drew, finding out more information every hour about her birth mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents and even possibly half brothers and sisters. What she is learnt was that you can’t open half a can of worms.
    Armed with a cut price private detective, a lot of social media to trawl through and a template of her own distinctive eyebrows, Deborah navigated her way through a family search that would have flummoxed lesser mortals.

    This is a rare feat: narrative stand-up that is warm and moving and very human. The audience is instantly on Deborah’s side and her persona has the room eating out of her hand. She even helped an elderly lady turn off her ringing phone without the slightest hint of irritation. Stand up comedians can be terribly nice as well as being very funny.

    The show is well composed, backed up by well put together film clips and manages to entertain with a ripping yarn as a backdrop. Deborah certainly deserves to have a hit show with this piece.

    Catch the show at the Edinburgh Fringe from the 1st to the 25th of August
    Buy tickets here: https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/deborah-frances-white-half-a-can-of-worms

  • FILM REVIEW | After The Dark (The Philosophers)

    ★★★★★ | | After The Dark (The Philosophers)

    In After The Dark it’s the last day of term and Mr. Zimit, a Philosophy Teacher challenges his international high school students to take part in one final thought experiment: It’s the apocalypse and there’s a bunker that will save some of them. There’s twenty-one of them and only ten places in the bunker. Having more than ten people in the bunker will mean that all in the bunker perish. The class must decide who will get a place in the bunker and who won’t.

    To help the students decide, Mr. Zimit hands them cards with skills on (e.g. Organic Farmer, Structural Engineer, Poet, etc.) for their character in this thought experiment. He encourages them to make logical decisions.

    Later Mr. Zimit ups the ante by telling students that they are required to get at least one pregnancy going during the year in the bunker and asks the students to open their cards to reveal another aspect to their character (e.g. one is gay, one is sterile, one is a midwife, one will get cancer in 3 years time, etc.). Then they have to decide again with this new information who will get a place in the bunker.

    After The Dark is a superb film that uses the dialogue and snippets of action to keep the watcher hooked throughout. Set in the Indonesian city of Jakarta, there are some beautiful settings in this film including Prambanan temple. The cast are mostly unknowns, but fitted their individual roles and worked together well.

    There is good representation of gay people in this film. One of the students is a gay man who is out, accepted and valued by his fellow students (and there is another one that isn’t out at the beginning of the film).

    The lead male character who is identified as straight, opens up his Organic Farmer card to reveal that his character is gay. He gets a place in the bunker, but when it comes to pairing up to get a pregnancy going he says he feels he wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping with a woman as a gay man. This is followed by a short scene of him and the openly gay student getting it on and then shows them becoming close as a couple.

    After The Dark is a film that challenges what you believe about philosophy, logic, the survival of the human race and whether it’s important to exist or live. You’ll find yourself watching it again and again and thinking about it for days afterwards. It will be a great source of enjoyment and generate a good debate among the people you watch it with.

    After The Dark is a fantastic five star film, one that has been under-rated and missed by most. It is available to pre-order/order on Amazon.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Golden Hour

    ★★★★★ | The Golden Hour

    This story about Guatemalan teenagers trying to escape their life of poverty and illegally cross the Mexican Border after a long and arduous journey en route to the USA, is one of the saddest and most dispiriting I have seen in a very long time. It starts with three friends Samuel, Juan and his girlfriend Sara who disguises herself as a boy, but a native Indian called Chaulk also latches on to them soon after they set out.

    The first of their many frightening ordeals occurs in small Mexican town where the Police round them up and immediately deport them back to Guatemala, but not before they rob them of their few possessions and their boots. They quickly find their way back to the Border but Samuel has already had enough and wants to go home. Juan has taken an instant dislike to Chaulk who he thinks is after Sara, but she insists he travels with them, so they all set off again.

    It’s not too long before the train they have jumped on along with hundreds of would-be migrants is stopped by the Mexican Army, but this time the three of them manage to escape and seek refuge in a sugar plantation. Back on the train, and this time it is halted by a band of Drug Traffickers who relieve everyone of anything remotely saleable and capture all the women including Sara who is spotted despite her disguise. When the two boys try to save her they are viscously beaten up by the gang and left unconscious in the middle of nowhere.

    Chaulk revives first as Juan’s injuries are more severe and the young Indian carries him to safety and nurses him back to health. Soon they are back on another train yet again and are easily lulled into false sense of security by another Guatemalan kid who promises them a job with his Uncle as they will need money to pay smugglers for the final stretch of their journey. It is a trap and they are about to be held hostage for ransom but as this gang is led by a fellow Guatemalan, Juan is let free. However as he won’t leave without Chaulk as he had saved his life, he offers the Captors the few dollars he has to buy the Indian’s freedom.

    It is sadly not the end of all the dangerous obstacles they will have to overcome on this seemingly endless harrowing journey.

    The movie’s original title is ‘Juala de Oro’ which translates into ‘Golden Cage’ and this is exactly what the kids get for all their dreams. The US willingly accepts illegals cheap labour but will not allow them the proper papers to rise beyond this lowly position. Despite this, and the continual fear of being caught and deported every single day, there will be hundreds of thousands other kids like these, that will still risk their lives for the hope of a better existence.

    Directed and co-written by Spanish filmmaker Diego Quemada-Díez (who was a cameraman on many of Ken Loach’s movies) it has a beautiful backdrop of stunning Mexican and Guatemalan landscapes that sometimes makes you forget the sheer poverty and the hardships of its inhabitants. The movie relies on amateur actors, but it is the sheer power of the story that makes it so watchable and also the reason it has won several awards including Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival.

    In Cinemas in the UK

  • FILM PREVIEW | Pride

    PRIDE tells the true story of how a group of lesbian and gay activists joined forces with a small Welsh mining community in 1984, supporting them during their darkest hour.

    Despite the subject matter, it is deliciously funny. Starring an ensemble cast including Dominic West, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Andrew Scott and Paddy Considine, PRIDE received a standing ovation at Cannes this year and is being heralded as the British feel good movie of the year. PRIDE opens nation-wide on 12th September.

    Here is a link to the first trailer that has just been released;-

  • The Secret Is Out, The Shadow Lounge Is Back

    If you’re in London this weekend with post pride blues wondering where the next party’s at, then check out the newly refurbished Shadow Lounge in the heart of Soho.

    Soho’s Biggest Secret has been unleashed and it’s clear there’s been no expense spared when it came to refurbishing the sophisticated venue. From the installation of the latest sound system sourced from Vegas to the ceiling and walls covered in special LED screens which display a whole range of graphics including images of clubbing guys to our favourites; the twinkling stars.

    Gone is the ‘hole-in-the-ground-bull-ring’ dance area, complete with 70’s disco floor and the limited walking space, and say hello to a roomier, more open, intimate-warehousey space, it doesn’t sound possible but they’ve done it.

    Shadow Lounge is a great club to party and lose yourself in the music. Ensconced within one of the private booths TheGayUK team were served by the cute and attentive bar staff who were on hand to serve and make us feel at home. Special shout out to Antonio who made us all feel incredibly welcomed.

    You don’t have to be a member to visit the Shadow Lounge, however there are a host of benefits in becoming one including, complimentary entry for you and a friend, birthday champagne and personal table service. Full details can be found at www.theshadowlounge.co.uk

    Wednesday’s are hosted by The Family Fierce, Thursdays Minty, Fridays Miss Dusty O’ and Saturdays Johanna Londinium.

    Shadow Lounge is located in Brewer Street (number 5), right next to Prowler and is open from 9:00PM to 3:00AM and is available for private hire. Find out more visit: http://www.theshadowlounge.co.uk

  • THEATRE REVIEW | West Side Story, Sheffield Lyceum And UK Tour

    ★★★★ | West Side Story, Sheffield Lyceum And UK Tour

    Set in the mid 1950s, two rival gangs battle it out for control of their little piece of the Upper West Side of New York. The Jets, local boys whose families have lived there for generations, are at loggerheads with The Sharks, the Puerto Ricans, who are trying to settle into their new lives. Tony, the former leader of the Jets meets with Maria, the sister of Bernardo who is the leader of The Sharks, and the two fall madly in love. But as their love grows, so does the rivalry between the gangs, leading to tragedy.

    This revival of the classic musical, based on Romeo and Juliet, is a thoroughly entertaining piece of theatre. The show has a gritty edge to it and a dark, dramatic and emotional story at its heart. The score, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, includes Tonight, Maria and Somewhere, all of which still pack an emotional punch. The mood is lightened by the mischievous Gee Officer Krupkee, the flamboyant America and the whimsical I Feel Pretty, with the whole of the classic score being played beautifully by the live orchestra and expertly sung by the cast.

    Both Louis Maskell, who plays Tony, and Katie Hall as Maria, were in stunning voice, with Hall’s almost operatic qualities complimenting Maskell’s emotion filled vocals. Matthew Hawksley, making his professional debut, stood out from the crowd with his convincing performance as “Action”, comfortably conveying the characters frustration and pent up aggression and Djalenga Scott entertained as the feisty Anita.

    But the ensemble pieces were where this show really excelled, with the set, which reflected the back alleys and fire escapes of the inner city, being deceptively versatile, opening up to create a generous dance space for the large and very talented cast to undertake the breath-taking dance routines. By going back to the original choreography by Jerome Robbins, the dance in this production is simply superb to watch – with the sequences assisting in conveying and moving forward the narrative; the standout scenes being the Mambo at the gym, and the Ballet Sequence.

    The lighting was also well designed, utilising colour washes and silhouettes alongside low level highlighting, providing a visually interesting interplay of light and shadow. The balance between vocals and music was fine – but the only quibble in terms of the production was the volume of the speaking in between the musical numbers was a little low, meaning it was sometimes difficult to hear what was being said.

    The show has everything to please both established fans and to introduce a new generation of theatre goers to this beautifully crafted piece of theatre. Some may find it heavy going, but for those who would like a little more narrative, character and drama from their musical theatre then this show is the one to see.

    West Side Story is currently at the Sheffield Lyceum Theatre until Saturday 12th July 2014 (http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/event/west-side-story-14/ ) before continuing on its national tour (http://westsidestorytheshow.co.uk/home ).

  • Frozen soundtrack is the biggest seller since Mamma Mia

    The creators of Disney’s Frozen will be celebrating today after the UK Official Charts Company announced that the soundtrack has gone double platinum.

    So not only is Frozen one the highest grossing films of all times, its soundtrack is now the biggest selling soundtrack since megahit Mamma Mia. The Academy Award winning Frozen is closing in on NOW 87 as the biggest selling album of 2014 to date, according to the Official Charts Company

    Let It Go, the lead track performed by Idina Menzel, has spent 28 consecutive weeks in the Top 40 on the Official Singles Chart, and has now been certified Gold in the UK. Six songs from the Frozen OST are still in the Official Singles Chart.

    Richard Hinkley, General Manager, Universal Music Catalogue explains, ‘When we first saw the movie it was evident that this had all the ingredients of a classic Disney musical soundtrack: lots of great original songs performed by strong characters, with a captivating storyline. We are absolutely delighted to be part of this magical story that has captured a generation. In a world of ever-greater media fragmentation, Let It Go has become the single common cultural moment for every child and their parents.’

    Ritch Sibthorpe, Managing Director, Music, The Walt Disney Company EMEA adds, ‘We are thrilled with the success of the Frozen Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, a key component of the most successful feature in Walt Disney Animation studio’s history. Core song Let It Go has become a true phenomenon and anthem for young families worldwide, evidenced by a rich outpouring of user generated content across social media. The soundtrack is one of a number of Frozen products currently breaking sales records including DVD and Blu Ray formats, toys, clothing and more.’