THEGAYUK

Category: Entertainment

  • Gorgeous book aimed at celebrating diversity is released

    Even RuPaul is a fan


    Julian is on his way home with his Nana when he spots some mermaids, or at least he thinks they’re mermaids. Just a mere glimpse of these joyous women and Julian’s imagination transforms him into a dazzling mermaid. At home, he puts on some make-up, styles his hair, and fashions himself a long mermaid tail. But what will Nana think when she sees him?

    Julian is a Mermaid celebrates self-confidence and diversity in a plethora of ways, from gender stereotypes, to family dynamics and body types. Bursting with individuality and acceptance, Jessica Love has created a picture book glowing with so much beauty and wonder, it’ll mesmerise all those who read it.

    Jessica Love is an illustrator and Broadway actress. She has a BA in studio art from the University of California, as well as a graduate degree from Juilliard. Julian Is A Mermaid is her first picture book. Find her online @jesslovedraws.

    Available from Amazon

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Play That Goes Wrong

    ★★★☆☆ | The Play That Goes Wrong

    There is an old saying in theatre that “the show must go on” and nowhere is that old adage put more to the test than in The Play That Goes Wrong, a comedy of errors which collates every actor’s worst nightmare and throws them at the cast who are determined to carry on regardless.

    Borrowing heavily from The Mousetrap, The Play That Goes Wrong is a scattergun comedy set around the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, who is performing The Murder at Haversham Manor, a murder mystery set in the roaring twenties. Despite the best endeavours of the cast, nothing quite goes right for them, as scenery collapses, actors are knocked unconscious, props break and unprepared understudies stand in.

    With a varied blend of visual gags, slapstick, farce, wordplay, one-liners, missed cues and a rather more animated corpse than one would expect, the gags come thick and fast; some hitting the bullseye and others missing the target; but the whole thing is so fast-paced, that there is always another gag heading your way imminently. Garnering some genuine laugh out loud moments, the show has a sensible one hour forty minute runtime meaning that even if a few of the gags begin to outstay their welcome, the show does not.

    Whilst there is plenty of fun to be found and a lot of chuckles, guffaws and belly-laughs to be had, the ending of the show descends into a rather shouty and chaotic handful of closing scenes which, unfortunately, slightly takes the edge off of what has come before. But that said, the cast is delightful, in particular, Kazeem Tosin Amore; and there is some excellent split second comedic timing and plenty of physical dexterity on offer as the fictional cast try desperately to keep their faces straight, their upper lips stiff and prevent the performance collapsing into a catastrophe.

    The Play That Goes Wrong is currently at Sheffield Theatres until the 4th August 2018 before continuing on its national tour.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Titanic, The Musical, Liverpool Empire

    THEATRE REVIEW | Titanic, The Musical, Liverpool Empire

    ★★★☆☆ | Titanic – The Musical – Liverpool Empire

    Titanic - The Musical - National Tour review

    **This review was taken from the Sheffield production**

    Despite it being over 100 years since Titanic slipped under the waves, the fascination with the ship and those on board hasn’t faded, as evidenced by the packed house of this revival of Moury Yeston’s musical. The story of the ships maiden voyage and, ultimately, its demise is told through a wealth of characters from all classes of passengers and from the crew on board.

    The set, all sheet metal and rivets, towers above the audience instilling in them the impression of the sheer scale of the ship whilst a simple two-tier stage evoked an image of the decks and worked effectively. But from the off, the cast were on top form, as the magnificent ensemble belted out the opening numbers with such gusto that it reverberated in the chest, like the sounds of the engines of the great ship itself.

    And therein lays the strength of this production. Its cast was outstanding, and whether singing alone, in small groups or as an ensemble, the whole thing was beautifully sung and more akin to an opera than a musical. The three leads Philip Rham, Simon Green and Greg Castiglioni bounced off each other nicely as the Captain, owner and designer of the ship, and Niall Sheeny impressed as the stoker Fred Barrett. Whilst the direction was fairly minimal, the cast switched between their multiple roles seamlessly, spilling out into the aisles on occasions to engage the audience; whilst on a technical level, the lighting and sound design, the costumes and the balance between actors voices and orchestra were all absolutely spot on.

    Sadly, an overly long runtime, a handful of similar-sounding songs and a few too many story threads anchored down the first act to an extent, but the second act picked up the pace as the race to abandon ship took hold.

    What comes out of the production is an underlying theme of love between the characters, from the newlyweds to the eloping couple to the elderly husband and wife, and it is this which packs the emotional punch and brings the human cost of the tragedy sharply into focus.

    Book tickets to see Titanic, The Musical at Liverpool Empire until 4th August 2018

  • FILM REVIEW | Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

    MAMMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN – The sequel and a much more accomplished movie to the 11th most successful film of all time. Everyone is back bringing you over 20 Abba songs and a much better story with added Cher class.

    Nutshell – A movie released exactly 10 years after the first film tells us what the characters are doing also a decade on with parallel flashbacks to the origin story of Meryl Streep’s Donna character in the 80s from the first time around. So we get mother and daughter’s stories filled out and then grandmother Cher rolls in but its all about the tunes and we get some huge production numbers right from the outset with a vastly increased budget and Richard Curtis added to the writing team.
    Running Time – 114 Minutes – Cert PG.
    Tagline – ‘Thankyou For The Music Again’
    The Gay UK Factor – Well we only have a couple of lines but this is as gay as Lady Gaga doing a Madonna medley at an Elton John used buttplug auction. It was the gays that took over Abba’s back catalogue about 8 years after they disbanded leading to the stage musical. We have kept them close to our glitter covered hearts since whilst Cher became queen of the gays straight after she climbed on board a battleship with 500 sailors in just her knickers belting out ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ with a 40-foot cannon between her legs. It helps that two of the young leads in this movie are hotter than Tom Daley’s popper collection also.
    Cast – Amanda Seyfried, Lily James, Meryl Streep, Cher, Dominic Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Julie Walters, Andy Garcia, Colin Firth plus Benny & Bjorn from the greatest pop act of all time.
    Key Player – This is a love affair to Abba and with the same production team as before much credit also needs to go to the brains behind it all Julie Kramer, Phyllida Lloyd and Richard Curtis. That said there is no question that the breakout performance here is that of Lily James (Baby Driver, The Darkest Hour, Cinderella) playing the young Meryl character she is a great actor and lights up the screen and boy can that girl sing.
    Budget – $70 Million already made double that so, on to week two and the obvious second stage play.
    Best Bit – 1.12 mins; With a great life-affirming opening number ‘When I Kissed The Teacher’ and two great bits at the end one which will make you weep and the other that will make you sing at the top of your voice there is plenty of high points here. Yet when the opening blast of ‘Dancing Queen’ hits at a real key moment you will be flying as high as a bird on the wing. Pure joy in a bottle.
    Worst Bit – 0.18 mins; With any musical, you are going to get a couple of numbers which don’t work even the great Les Mis has that high pitched kiddie song. Here we get a rough as a dog’s ass version of ‘Kisses Of Fire’ but even that surpasses ‘Waterloo’ sung badly in a Napoleonthemedd restaurant sung by TV’s Hugh Skinner (ITV’s The Windsors & BBC’s W1A) and he makes Brosnan sound like Pavarotti on a good day here.
    Little Secret – How popular are musicals at the moment? The Greatest Showman soundtrack just had the longest run at number one of 27 weeks for 51 years since Julie Andrews was spinning around on an Austrian hilltop. Now it’s been knocked off the chart summit by this juggernaut. Through Chicago, Frozen, Les Mis, Beauty & The Beast, La La Land etc. we cannot get enough of musicals and there are many more in the pipeline.
    Further Viewing – Mamma Mia 1, Mermaids, Chicago, Phantom Of the Opera, Grease, Into The Woods, Evita, Dreamgirls, Summer Holiday, Blue Hawaii and the original beach musical classic South Pacific.
    Any Good – If you are a fan you will lap this up if not, then go see the boy’s own Mission Impossible or Dwayne Johnson films instead. This is really great, it is better than the original, partly due to the fact that it can break even further away from its stage origins and also because it can pick lesser known songs which fit better rather than having to be a greatest hits and forcing them into a story whether they like it or not and yes ‘Money, Money, Money’ & ‘Chiquitita’ we are looking at you. This just works, will make you feel joyous for a day or two after you have seen it and many times more when you buy the CD and DVD by the millions.
    This should have been a car crash in all honesty but it is full on Formula 1 massive success.
    88/100

  • Queer recording artist, Nuni B releases EPIC music video

    It’s ballroom but not as the mainstream knows it.

    Yep, this is pure queer underground and Nuni B’s new track ‘Tried it’ is epic.

    The video celebrates the ballroom scene of the early 90s right into today’s scene. If you want to find out more about the queer ballroom scene of the late 80s and 90s be sure to check out the documentary film Paris Is Burning, which explores the characters and LGBT+ movement at the end of the 20th century.

  • FILM REVIEW | Skyscraper

    ★★★☆☆

    | SKYSCRAPER

    The world’s highest paid movie actor in history Dwayne Johnson in a Diehard type update in the world highest building makes sense right? Twice the height of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to make Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible building clinging exploits look like that of a pussy, nothing is small here.

    Nutshell – The big man is doing an insurance appraisal on ‘The Pearl’ a new mega-structure which is about to open. Cue a terrorist-induced fire halfway up the skyscraper, The Rock’s family trapped and in ever increasing jeopardy and a heist plot means the muscle mountain has to rip his shirt off and attempt one death-defying stunt after another to save the day or die trying.

    Running Time – 104 Minutes – Cert 12A and thereby we have the film’s biggest problem it is just too short and rushed – many kid’s cartoons are longer than this.

    Tagline – ‘Don’t Look Down’ & ‘The Sky Is The Limit’ – yes not a lot of thought has gone into this one.

    TheGayUK Factor – Dwayne is his usual hot as fuck self and then halfway through he gets a minor injury and the shirt comes off and the muscles and extensive tattoos come out and screw us, it is hot. The 6’4″ superstud has never looked better all those skinless chicken suppers and gym sweat is paying off but then it is back to the plot and the sweat just keeps coming at ya.

    Cast – Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell in her best role since her Scream franchise ended, Noah Taylor and Orange is the New Black’s ‘porntache man’ Pablo Schreiber.

    Key Player – Let’s not kid anyone this movie would not exist, be financed, reviewed, watched and enjoyed if it was not for Dwayne’s presence and him saying “yes” to it. The man could get a full-length movie about Theresa May’s sex life, a comedy starring Andy Murray, a gay version of Beaches or an epic entitled Brexit The Movie greenlit. He has single-handedly rescued four massive franchises with The Mummy, Fast & Furious, Journey 2 & GI Joe this is unlikely to be the next.

    Budget – $125 Million but will probably only make a minor profit which is disappointing following Johnson’s huge scoring 2017 with Fast & Furious 8, Moana and Jumanji but maybe forget Baywatch and this year’s earlier giant monkey movie Rampage. At least you have to give him the hardest working man in Hollywood title.

    Best Bit – 0.46 mins; Where the Mrs’ and kids are in the proverbial shit as a bridge across the park halfway up the tower collapses. It is a very well done tense scene we just need a lot more of this kind of peril across the other 90 minutes.

    Worst Bit – 0.21 mins; The villain here is just not evil enough and seems just off the shelf. His motive even less engaging and he also doesn’t have a decent sidekick with some super fighting skills or personal defect, so we get knock-off average goons we don’t care about.

    Little Secret – One of the lead collaborators on the movie is the Architect Adrian Smith who worked on the current tallest building the Burj Khalifa and is now working on the one to surpass it, the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia. The fictional tower in the movie was moved to Hong Kong to take advantage of the now massive South-East Asian film market who love Dwayne’s movies. Dwayne Johnson was a hugely successful football star before a back injury made him switch to wrestling. He went back to wrestling after the Mummy Returns and Scorpion King movies as he thought he would not be a success as an actor. He is now the highest paid one of all time.

    Further Viewing – Diehard’s 1-4 which this movie would simply love to be & isn’t, Towering Inferno, San Andreas, Central Intelligence, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, Gremlins 2, Entrapment or any Airport, Earthquake, Poseidon disaster flick of the 70’s.

    Any Good – This is a classic high single concept movie. The action is non stop but Dwayne does not get much of a chance to raise an eyebrow, crack a joke or do all the things we love from the guy. He is always engaging and tries hard but has little support and everything is so rushed resulting in the short running time. If there was only room for many of the scenes to breath and create more tension this would be so much better and raise it above standard 3-star territory which it could so easily have been. It is perfectly serviceable until Dwayne brings us Suicide Squad 2, San Andreas 2, Jumanji 3, Big Trouble In Little China and of course his much anticipated Fast & Furious spin-off with another of our great gay jerk off fantasies Jason Statham. The ultimate cockfight is coming in 2019.

    Rating: 49/100

  • FILM REVIEW | Fags In The Fast Lane

    FILM REVIEW | Fags In The Fast Lane

    ★★★★ | Fags In The Fast Lane

    Having headed into Dullsville to counteract a string of gay bashings, handsome hero, Sir Beauregard (aka The Cockslinger) and his trusty companion Reginald Lampoon III find themselves embroiled in a quest to retrieve The Golden Cock, a talisman which you rub to bring “good luck to the f***”, and which has been stolen by The Chompers, a grotesque Burlesque troupe of mutants, led by Wanda the Giantess. Heading off with homophobic hood, Squirt, in tow, and chased by Squirt’s equally homophobic sheriff father, Beau joins forces with a Persian cross-dressing princess and an Indian assassin on an increasingly bizarre road trip leading to Freaky Town with one goal in mind – to get his hands on the phallic wonder.

    Without fitting into any specific movie genre, Fags is a wonderfully distasteful yarn which couldn’t be much gayer if it tried. Knowingly revelling in its gaudy, kitsch, low budget glory, Fags harks back to the late 70’s/early 80’s sexpoltation parodies, in a massive mash-up of trashy, freaky, funny, and downright bizarre. From brothels to Bollywood, and from tiki-tiki huts to trashy townships, the road trip is littered with phallic references, drag queens, knob gags galore and plenty to laugh at. Throw in a handful of musical interludes, puppets, miniature models and practical special effects and you have a film which has its tongue planted so firmly in its cheek that it hurts; and one which you just have to sit back, and let yourself be taken along for the ride. Imagine the kind of film that you would end up with if the lovechild of Russ Myers and John Walters made a Barbarella / Xanadu crossover in the style of Flesh Gordon with added (gay) sexploitation and you are pretty much there.

    But aside from that, Fags also takes clichés and stereotypes and successfully subverts them, by not only reclaiming them, but by celebrating them. It’s not afraid to thrust its camp glory in the faces of the viewers and does so with aplomb; whilst somewhere buried deep in the garishness of it all is a bold statement about being yourself.

    Nestling neatly between parody and homage, Fags in the Fast Lane is brimming with giggly homoeroticism and is quickly heading for camp cult classic status.

    Fags in the Fast Lane is available on DVD , VOD or from iTunes.  You can  also view the trailer on YouTube

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Thriller Live! – Sheffield Theatres

    ★★★☆☆ | Thriller Live!

    Celebrating the music, dancing and performances of the entertainer, Thriller Live is a whistle-stop tour of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits, rolled into a relentless package of iconic dance moves, legendary performances and classic songs.

    From his early days in Mowtown, through the Jackson 5 years and onto his solo success, the show features a quartet of singers who perform against a backdrop of spectacular choreography which is performed with unyielding vigour and energetic enthusiasm by the vivacious cast of dancers who fill the stage; accompanied by a talented bunch of musicians in the live band.

    Cleverly taking the routines, or snippets of them, highlights included music video recreations of ‘Smooth Criminal’ and ‘Thriller’, great renditions of ‘Man in the Mirror’ and ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ and some tracks you wouldn’t immediately associate with Michael Jackson, including ‘Dangerous’ and ‘This Place Hotel’.

    Despite the vocals not being of the highest order, some forced audience participation and a couple of songs descending into an overblown mess, there is still plenty of enjoyment to be found here. Regardless of the controversy surrounding his life, Michael Jackson’s enduring appeal undoubtedly remains, especially if the shouts, whoops and cheers from the audience were anything to go by.

    Whilst musical revues can often come across as sycophantic, Thriller Live manages to sidestep being the gushing praise-fest that it could be, and instead allows the party atmosphere, music, songs and dance routines to speak for themselves in an undemanding evening of foot tapping, high end cabaret.

    Thriller Live is rounding off its national tour at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre until 21st July 2018, but you can still catch the show in the West End.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | It Happened in Key West, Charing Cross Theatre, London

    THEATRE REVIEW | It Happened in Key West, Charing Cross Theatre, London

    ★★★ | It Happened in Key West

    A true story of a man who dug up the love of his life is a musical called It Happened in Key West.

    Yes, it did happen in Key West. In the 1940s, Count Carl Von Cosel fell in love with a woman, Elena, he was treating for tuberculosis . She died, but von Cosel was so infatuated and in love with her that he dug up her body and, for over 7 years, lived with her, well not really with her but with her body, in his house, in Key West.

    Now playing at the Charing Cross Theatre, with book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello, book and additional lyrics by Jason Huza, and book and original content by Jeremiah Janes who all collaborated together to create this musical, while a bit on the funny side, is too morbid and too silly to be taken seriously, and not funny enough to be camp and over the top.

    Having said that, Wade Mccollum is great as the Count. He’s got a great singing voice, especially in a song where he pines for Elena (‘Undying Love’ and ‘I’ve Never Felt This way’) are two standouts. He commands the stage and surely belongs in the West End but in a better show. Alyssa Martyn is just fine as Elena, who surprisingly dies before the first half is finished – it might’ve made more sense to have her die after the first half, but she does sing ‘I Feel Love,’ while dead, in the second half, and comes ‘back to life’ at the very end to sing, beautifully, in the finale. Director and Choreographer Marc Robin doesn’t have a whole lot to work with, it seems like the same 12 boxes remained as the set the whole way through the show. ‘It Happened in Key West,’ billed as a New Romantic Musical Comedy, is not much of a musical nor a romance.

    http://www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Dusty: The Dusty Springfield Musical, Sheffield Theatres and National Tour

    ★★★★☆ | Dusty: The Dusty Springfield Musical

    It wasn’t just her voice that made Dusty Springfield so distinctive. In 1964, she was deported from South Africa for refusing to play to segregated audiences. She stood up against male musicians who wouldn’t be told how to play their instruments by a woman. She was the first singer to be open about their bisexuality and had a long-term relationship with a black woman at a time when both sexuality and race were incredibly sensitive social issues, and she championed black artists breaking into the UK mainstream. But behind the beehive and eyeshadow was a tragic individual brimming with self-loathing and doubt, and one who struggled with her mental health, sexuality and substance misuse.

    During one key scene, when asked whether she had any regrets, Dusty says “I wish I’d been more open”, and with her troubled private life, her own issues and guilt around her sexuality, and her willingness to stand up for what she believed in, it is easy to see why Dusty became, and remains, a gay icon. Written by Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing; Gimme, Gimme, Gimme), the play nestles somewhere in between musical biopic and jukebox musical, and looks at Springfield’s life from her first solo hit to her death in 1999, without shying away from her darker years and the troubles which blighted her in private.

    Katherine Kingsley not only carries the show, but is quite simply outstanding, with a performance that captures the look, sound and emotions of the iconic performer to perfection, particularly in the show’s denouement, with a powerhouse performance of “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”; whilst Joanna Francis stands out as Lois, Springfield’s long-term partner, with a voice which drips with pure soul. Harvey’s script handles Dusty’s bisexuality and lesbianism with sensitivity, and the show provides many touching scenes between Dusty and Lois. It is refreshingly pleasing to see such a positive and tender portrayal of a lesbian relationship in mainstream theatre.

    Harvey’s script is warm and instantly accessible, although a little clumsy at times in its integration of high drama and sitcom humour; and whilst the songs are undeniable classics and span the length of her career, they are perhaps not abundant enough. Whilst the set is over-reliant on projected images and the production values overall require a lot of spit and polish, the enthusiasm of the cast and some outstanding performances elevate Dusty to a suitably heartfelt and, ultimately, very enjoyable tribute to a classic artist.

    Dusty: The Dusty Springfield Musical is at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre until the 14th July 2018 before continuing on its national tour.

  • Five best musicals to see in London this summer

    London town is home to great theatre, famous across the globe for its treasured West End – second only to (maybe) Broadway in New York. So what is worth watching in this city, this summer?

    Chicago

    If you’ve never seen Chicago on stage and only know it from the Hollywood film then you’re missing out. It has to be seen in the flesh (and there’s a lot of flesh on show). The men are beefy and scantily clad and the women are Vaudevillian and slinky. The set and costumes are pared back with an on-stage orchestra belting out all those classic Kander and Ebb hits. The choreography is note perfect with all the shoulder shrugs, finger clicks and pelvic thrusts that you expect from Bob Fosse. Yes, it’s the same old show that we got in the 90s but who cares? It’s a veritable classic. With murderesses this stylish and camp who needs anything new.  Tickets reduced to £30 (some with no booking fee)

    Bat Out Of Hell

    Raven is a lonely girl – she’s not allowed outside at all – but she really wants to experience the outside world, to ride the subway, to meet a boy. In the outside world Strat (Andrew Polec) leads a gang of nomads and hangers-on, and he’s always dreamt of catching the girl – particularly Raven, but she’s not available. So all sorts of musical mayhem takes place including Strat trying to kidnap Raven so that he and her can be together. Meanwhile, one of the gang members (a fabulous Danielle Steers – returning) is slowly falling in love with another gang member, while she’s actually a maid in the Falco household. She knows their secrets, and lies.

    This is the story, in a nutshell, but the way it’s told is spectacular. Motorcycles, explosions, video projection, skimpy costumes, a convertible on stage that was formerly a dining room table, and said convertible plunging off the stage into the orchestra pit – it’s all musical mayhem – from a rock classic album, and it is just as good on stage as it is on the album and when it played at the Coliseum. The cast dance and prance on stage, and with most of the songs dealing with love, Bat Out of Hell is a love story set to rock music. It’s loud, it’s crazy, it’s superb! No booking fee on tickets available. Tickets are available from £15.00

    Wicked

    55 million people can’t be wrong, which is why Wicked is one of the world’s most successful musicals. Wicked is going into its 12th year in London and it’s still fresh, timely and defying expectations. Wicked takes you behind The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz story to find out about the two witches featured in the original story, “Wicked Witch”, Elphaba (you know the one – green and gets the bucket of water) – played by Alice Fearn and the “Good Witch”, Glinda (you know, the one that arrives by bubble) played by Sophie Evans. Tickets from £25.30

     

    Tina

    Playing at the Aldwych Theatre, Tina charts the ups, and many downs, of Tina’s life. Born as Ann-Mae Bullock, in 1939, we are shown, first hand, how, as a little girl, she was brought up in a violent household where her father hit her mother, causing her mother to move away with her sister (leaving Ann-Mae behind). Tickets available from £23.21

     

    42nd Street

    Mark Bramble, who originally wrote the book (along with Michael Stewart) directs this new production, and it’s a non-stop bacchanalia of fun! And with an amazing and flawless cast of over 50, 42nd Street has gotten better with time, even though it tells the same old time-trodden story of a young girl from a small town – Peggy Sawyer – who goes to the big city and dreams of making it big. She gets a job as a backup dancer in a new show called Pretty Lady, and the Pretty Lady in the title is Dorothy Brock (fabulously played by singer Sheena Easton). Brock is in love with Pat (Norman Bowman), who disappears off to Philadelphia. So Brock wants to follow him there, forcing the show to move to there. But Brock breaks her ankle, so after getting fired for causing Brock to break her leg, Sawyer is roped back into the show, this time as it’s lead, and she’s only got 48 hours to learn the part, to learn the dance moves, and is wooed and coddled by director Julian Marsh (Tom Lister). But it’s Billy (Stuart Neal) who really takes a liking to her. Will she be ready and rehearsed in time to open the show? Will the nerves get the best of her? I’m sure we can all figure out how it plays out – and plays out it does, much to our delight!  No booking fee and tickets are available from £15.78