THEGAYUK

Category: Entertainment

  • The new Kevin Spacey comeback movie announced

    The new Kevin Spacey comeback movie announced

    Are you ready for a Spacey comeback?

    We’re going to say it’s a no from us, but it’s forging ahead and in the movie, he’s playing a super rich gay con man. Billionaire Boys Club is set in the 1980s and is based on a true story about young men, who happen to be rich AF, getting caught up in a Ponzi scheme, which actually sounds like a good film – sort of a Wolf Of Wall Street thing… but yeah, but no.

    The film was actually started in December 2015, well before the allegations of sexual misconduct were levelled against the actor by Star Trek Discovery actor Anthony Rapp. The film officially wrapped in early 2016.

    It will now be released in August.

    Kevin Spacey was actually replaced in the last film he made, All The Money In The World.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Titanic, The Musical, Edinburgh Playhouse

    THEATRE REVIEW | Titanic, The Musical, Edinburgh Playhouse

    ★★★☆☆ | Titanic – The Musical – Edinburgh Playhouse

    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 Edinburgh Playhouse until 16th June 2018

  • 16 Amazing pictures from Netflix’s new gay drama, Alex Strangelove

    16 Amazing pictures from Netflix’s new gay drama, Alex Strangelove

    Netflix’s new gay drama, Alex Strangelove was launched last week.

    The new film, starring newbie Daniel Doheny has caught the imagination of fans and reviewers alike. It tells the story of Alex Truelove, who has a bright future ahead of him. He has a beautiful girlfriend and everything seems to be fitting into place. Things get complicated when he meets Elliot. What follows is a rollercoaster of emotions as Alex explores his sexual identity.

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  • THEATRE REVIEW | Reuben Kaye, Soho Theatre

    ★★★★★ | Reuben Kaye, Soho Theatre

    Never heard of Reuben Kaye? You will! Sick, slick, as gorgeously filthy as a pouting penis, Kay’s a living bigot’s nightmare, spunking left, right and centre over every sacred cow possible! Think a Dale Winton on acid, but – thank f*ck -one blessed with the chiselled, Greek-statue perfection of a 1950’s beefcake idol. Yes, this face, this presence, this glorious insult personified, is the joint king and queen of Australian cabaret, briefly condescending to take one awesome, comic dump on the UK’s half-starved notions of hilarity.

    Bursting on stage like some Satanic, lobster-red supernova awash with sequins and buoyed on precarious platforms, Kaye immediately sucks up every fraction of potential ridicule from tonight’s blackly comic zeitgeist. Like some fantastical Shirley Bassey reincarnated as a ripped gay ninja, Kaye’s scorchingly weaponised his scattergun satire, raising it – quite effortlessly – to the status of a lethally funny martial art.

    But, WTF? Let’s backtrack one moment, because frankly, context is everything, so pardon my presumption while I pump you full of backstory! In common with his closest, possible rival, the inexplicably ubiquitous but dramatically tepid Dusty Limits, our Reuben’s a gay Aussie, but – and it’s a huge butt – the comparisons stop right there. If Limits seems content to peddle mildly risque double entendres like some Poundland Julian Clary, Kaye is a living menage a trois, a one-man queer, Holy Trinity, the three queens of Priscilla compounded in one fabulously provocative presence!

    No wonder, then, he’s enjoyed rapturously received residencies at London’s Savoy and Rosewood hotels, in addition to constant bookings worldwide. And tonight – fittingly – he’s on brilliantly non-PC fire. His advice on drugs? Try them on someone else first, and if they’re still alive in an hour, do them, drugs and asshole! And he skewers the pitfalls of drug-f*cked sex perfectly: ‘Doing it doggy-style? Maybe turn around once in a while, check that it’s still the same person you started with!’.

    Get the picture? Yes, nothing and no one’s safe, especially the audience. ‘Ohh, I’d like you to clean my dildo’ Kaye quips to a shell-shocked punter, ‘I can literally feel your arsehole clenching in fear’. Christ, screw priests, parents and anguished, clueless counsellors- a Kaye a day keeps a gayboy at play! And forget Trump on Twitter -nothing escapes Kaye’s killer, cultural scalpel. ‘Consent? A term unknown to straight men…’. Too true, but there’s also praise for supernatural sluttishness; ‘Jesus – I love a man who can be nailed for three days straight and come back for more…’. Well, don’t we all, and Kaye’s scathing tornado of sexual surrealism is like first-time penetration – give in, and you’ll love it! Where else could a mutual love of Grace Jones and civil rights get mashed-up as ‘12 years a slave…to the rhythm?’.

    Exhilarating? You bet, and sure, Reuben gleefully slaughters three furiously sacred cows – racism, sexism and homophobia. Still, unlike the far fiercer David Hoyle, Kaye never critiques or challenges the LGBT moral axis underpinning his whole act. If brash, apparently fearless and flamingly flamboyant, Kaye shrewdly avoids any lurking, intersectional minefields of identity politics. And ironically, though he spits bile, venom and shade in a virtuoso blizzard of genderqueer radicalism, Kaye’s comedy is hamstrung by the binary assumptions he conforms to, but also attacks.

    So, unfortunately, in 2018, Kaye’s keynote, us and them stance is completely irrelevant to gender-fluid millennials like Cara Delavigne and St.Vincent, who see pansexuality as just another box to be ticked in today’s current, sexually unbounded pleasure menus. Oh, don’t get me wrong – Reuben is, by far, the most brilliant avatar of his chosen cul-de-sac, but his brand of oppositional comedy depends on totally punctured paradigms, and he’s been made obsolete by changes in gender discourse itself.

    But, who really cares? Who the hell goes to a comedy show seeking philosophical enlightenment? Sometimes- as Sigmund Freud once said -‘a cigar is just a cigar’, not a blatant penis metaphor, and sometimes, killer comedy is f*cking hilarious, whatever the subtext! So, let’s give a big hand – with optional, rectal consent – to Reuben Kaye, the living Shakespeare of confrontational cabaret. Comedy really doesn’t get any better than being mentally masturbated by a tall, dark stranger!

    At the Soho Theatre in London until the 16th June 2018

  • THEATRE REVIEW | San Domino

    THEATRE REVIEW | San Domino

    ★★★★★ |  San Domino

    San Domino is an island off the east coast of Italy that was once an island where people of a certain ‘way’ were exiled to by the facist Benito Mussolini government. He banished prisoners there to pay for their ‘crimes’ – some of the crimes being speaking out against the government. It was also a place where homosexuals were sent as well.

    A new show by the name of San Domino beautifully tells this story that very few people are aware of.

    Now playing at the Tristian Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, ten men, in 1939, are having a great time in a bar in Catania, Sicily. They have not committed any crimes, but a knock on the door will change all their lives forever. According to the government, they were degenerates because it is suspected they were homosexuals and thus were sentenced to five years. These men include men from all walks of life, including older Carlo (Matthew Hendrickson) and young handsome Claudio (Alexander Hulme). San Domino tells the men’s stories, through dialogue and music, in a show that is poignant, dramatic and superbly acted, especially when the show moves from the jovial atmosphere of the bar where the men are being themselves to the camp where they share bunkbeds and are kept under careful watch of the prison guard and the very mean chief of police.

    Andrew Pepper is just superb as the androgynous Pietro, sensitive and always looking for love in all the wrong place, and Pietro never holds back and says what’s on his mind. The rest of the cast really work well together in a show that really is a must see.

    San Domino first previewed to an enthusiastic audience at the Courtyard Theatre in London, then played to a full house at the Arcola Theatre’s Grimeborn Festival in 2014. With Book & Lyrics by Tim Anfilogoff, and music composed by Alan Whittaker, with Direction by Matthew Gould, San Domino excellently tells the story of the one night in 1939 when many gay men were rounded up. It’s a story that should’ve been told years ago.

    Photo provided by KWPR / Grant Neal & Joe Etherington

  • FILM REVIEW | McQueen

    ★★★★★ | McQueen

    Film review, McQueen

    Fashion designer Alexander McQueen was a genius He had an eye for fashion but was also a troubled soul. The new documentary McQueen shows the highs, and the lows, of McQueen’s life.

    Alexander McQueen, born in London’s East End in 1969, seemed not to be destined to become one of fashion’s hottest and most successful designers in the 1990’s, but according to the documentary, he had talent, talent that can only be described as natural – he was born with it.

    McQueen begins with old footage of McQueen talking directly into the camera, footage that was taken at the height of his illustrious career. He enrolled as a student at Central St. Martin’s College of Fashion, and then moved on to Paris to learn the trade, then became a tailer, but it was when he met Isabella Blow, who happened to take him under his wing and, which is, according to the documentary, made him what he was. But McQueen was extremely talented, and not only did he launch his own fashion brand, but at the same time he was also head designer for fashion brand Givenchy all the while picking up various people along the way who became his trusted staff, people who speak to the camera effortlessly and honestly about McQueen and their time together.

    But all was not meant to be. McQueen dabbled in cocaine and London’s gay fetish scene, he was under enormous pressure to put together several collections a year, including haute couture, and he had a falling out with Blow, who would commit suicide at the age of 46, which put on more pressure and guilt on McQueen. But it was when his dear mother died when McQueen decided that enough was enough, and ended his pain. He committed suicide at the age of 40 in 2010.

    McQueen is an excellent testament to the man who was also called Lee. Through his friends, associates and sister Janet, we really feel that we get to know who Lee actually was ourselves. But it’s through the footage of his fashion shows where we get to see the real talent that he had. His shows were events, some very dark (which explains how deep and troubled he was), and showed how gorgeous, and emotionally beautiful, his creations were. Alexander McQueen died way too young, but through this documentary, you can at least experience his life and work, which was cut way too short.

  • FILM REVIEW | Deadpool 2

    DEADPOOL 2 – The foul-mouthed superhero is back in an improvement on the very good first film upping the laughs and story twists – the fourth wall is not just broken as destroyed making the viewer part of the movie throughout.

    FILM REVIEW | Deadpool 2
    Just how good is Deadpool?

    Nutshell – Our hero fails to kill one villain on a mission resulting in tragic personal consequences. A successful suicide attempt follows but he forgets he is the superhero that cannot die which sets everything in motion. Introduced to the X-men he meets a boy with fiery powers who has a murderous future ahead of him triggering a Terminator time travelling super villain to come back in time to change things – that’s just for starters then it gets complicated, funnier and more exciting by the minute.

    Running Time – 119inutes – Cert 15 – this superhero film is definitely not for your young nephew.

    Tagline – ‘Prepare for the second coming’ and ‘ From the studio that killed Wolverine’ – underlining this is the superhero franchise with the comedy chops.

    The Gay UK Factor – Really??? This movie stars Ryan Reynolds, the sexiest man on the planet not called David Gandy (He has been on top of the sexiest man alive polls). The trouble here is that a lot of the time he is covered face and all in his coverall superhero neoprene outfit and most of the rest of the time to fit with the storyline his face is disfigured. You do get some normal straight shots of Mr Reynolds but you do have that voice throughout so this is a movie to listen to as much as watch and let your imagination run riot…just imaging Ryan Reynolds sitting on our faces for two hours and you will get the picture.

    Cast – Ryan ‘time to get off my face’ Reynolds and some other people… well you get Josh Brolin, TJ Miller and appearances from Brad Patt, Matt Damon, Nicholas Hoult and James McAvoy.

    Key Player – Well, we would like to write more about Ryan Reynold’s ass, abs and bulging lycra but credit should also go to the superb writing team of Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and … Ryan Reynolds, is there no end to the man’s talent. Also, the director David Leitch who just gets everything right here in that rare thing a sequel that is a great improvement on the original. Leitch is new to directing after formally being Hollywood’s top stunt guy for such films as The Matrix, 300, Wolverine, XXX, Troy and the Jason Bourne films so you bet the action here is fierce.

    Budget – $110 Million less than half that of Infinity War and this is a better film – Already it has made over $630 million in just a few days and that’s just from the gay members of the Ryan Reynolds fan club, so lockdown for Deadpool’s 3 through 10. It is the third biggest grossing movie of the year and climbing just edging out The Greatest Showman and that bird with the beard singing “This Is Me” repeatedly.

    Best Bit – 0.47 mins; A prison convoy assault by our heroes and his buds and boy does it go spectacularly wrong in a fashion that only the Deadpool franchise can pull off.

    Worst Bit – 0.41 mins Nothing very bad here at all but you do get the slight deja vu feeling when the Terminator back in time plot to change the future kicks in. Also with Josh Brolin playing the bad guy in Marvel’s Avenger’s Infinity War last month do we need him playing a different villain here… does the studio not have a release calendar?

    Little Secret – Marvel main man Stan Lee rarely does not appear in this movie. The film was shut down for two days after the death of a stunt woman in the motorcycle chase. We are also promised a wonderful extended cut with an added hour that we cannot wait for but most of all throughout Deadpool makes many references to his pansexuality and the appeal of guys and with the characters of Warhead and Yukio we get the first LGBTQ couple in Marvel history. So this is the gayest superhero film yet.

    Further Viewing – With 19 Marvel films to pick from as well as the DC Universe and many others also you may consider the best of Ryan Reynolds naked and topless go straight for Blade Trinity or his gayest roll is The Nines.

    Any Good – Absolutely – this is better than Black Panther, Infinity War, Wonder Woman and Guardians 2 making it the best superhero movie of the last year. It is so on the money from the first minute to the incredibly funny mid credit scenes. There are countless great pop culture references, superb action sequences and a laugh every 30 seconds. Pure Friday night entertainment, this is what all cinema should be like, just don’t take the kids.

    82/100

  • THEATRE REVIEW | An Officer and a Gentleman – The Musical – National Tour

    ★★★☆☆ | An Officer and a Gentleman

    Officer and a Gentleman review

    Based on the classic film of the same name, An Officer and A Gentleman tells the story of Zack Mayo, a trainee fighter pilot who is from the wrong side of the tracks and is trying to make his way through the Naval Academy. Paula is a local girl working in a factory where she and her colleagues see the only way of escaping their humdrum lives is by being swept off their feet by a pilot and whisked away. But what starts off as a little bit of fun between the two of them becomes something more, but will either of them admit their true feelings?

    The show, and the first act in particular, thunders across the stage with dizzying speed and a relentless energy, in a production which is noisy, loud, bold and incredibly unsubtle; where a collision of lighting, sound, projected images, live music and a barrage of costume changes combine to be the absolute antithesis of the “less is more” school of thought.

    Jonny Fines makes for an appealing enough lead as Zack Mayo, with his ridiculously ripped form and a wry smile, nestling in nicely alongside his fellow recruits who appeared to have been hand-picked primarily for their pecs and ‘ceps appeal.  But despite the testosterone-fuelled world depicted in the story, the stage belonged firmly to the female ensemble, bringing some decent vocal performances to lift the broadly functional performances of the cast.

    Nikolai Foster’s direction takes the scattergun approach of throwing sufficient tricks, bells and whistles at the audience in the hope that some of them will stick, with a roughly even split of hits and misses. The show is set to an eclectic mix of 80’s classics, the musical numbers varied in terms of quality and performance, with a belting rendition of Alone by Emma Williams only serving to highlight the pub circuit stylings of some of the other musical numbers. There is a mix of soft rock classics (“I Want to Know what Love is”, “The Final Countdown”), some bubble-gum pop (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, “Material Girl”) and some of the lesser celebrated 80’s staples (“Hearts on Fire”, “Working for the Weekend”) compounding the scattergun feel of the show, but not necessarily in a bad way.

    But that is where the show really hits its stride. It never pretends to be anything other than what it is intended to be, namely a fun, cheesy and fairly corny slice of entertaining escapism. By the time the show draws to a conclusion with its iconic ending set to a sweeping rendition of Up Where We Belong, you can’t help but be suckered in by the feel-good factor of this slice of 80’s cheese.

    An Officer and A Gentleman is currently at Sheffield Theatres until the 9th June 2018 before continuing on its national tour

    BOOK TICKETS HERE

  • FILM REVIEW | My Friend Dahmer

    FILM REVIEW | My Friend Dahmer

    ★★★★ | My Friend Dahmer

    Jeffrey Dahmer, the American who murdered 17 young men back in the 1980s and 1990s, was showing signs of strange behaviour at a young age, according to the new film My Friend Dahmer.

    Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by cartoonist John Backderf, who had been friends with Dahmer in high school, the film shows how Dahmer came from a home where his parents constantly fought, and where he had an unnatural curiosity of the insides of animals. Dahmer, who grew up in Bath, Ohio, is brilliantly played by Ross Lynch, in a film that’s sharply edited and continually tense and spooky by the director, and writer, Marc Meyers. We see that Dahmer was awkward even to his own family, with a crazy and alcoholic mother (played by Anne Heche – in her best performance ever), and how Dahmer had a shed in the woods where he did certain experiments with animals.

    Dahmer is eventually adopted by some of the cool kids in his class to perform certain acts that drew attention to himself, basically these acts were spasms set out to cause disruptions, but they also seemed to do something to Dahmer’s soul, for he became more and more intense and weird, turning some of his evil thoughts from animals to, eventually, humans. Dahmer even plotted to kill a local doctor whom he became attracted to, but it was not meant to be. But it’s in these early years that we see the beginnings of Dahmer’s sinister future – how he would end up becoming one of the world’s most cruel and crazy mass murderers.

    Luckily for us, this film ends before the killings begin, but we know that this was the path that Dahmer’s life would take – the murder of many gay men in some of the most brutal and horrific ways.

    My Friend Dahmer is an excellent film that preludes an adult life where Dahmer would turn into a complete monster.

    My Friend Dahmer is released in the UK & Ireland on June 1st.

  • Everybody loves a film about Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

    Everybody loves a film about Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

    Warp Films announces open casting for the film version of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

    © Johan Persson

    It seems like everybody can’t stop talking about Jamie, the smash hit musical about a 16-year-old gay teenager and fledgeling drag queen from the Steel City who wants nothing more than to go to his school prom in a dress. In little over a year, the show has gone from its premiere at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre to an award-winning, recently extended run in the West End, a cast recording album being released and the stage show being filmed for broadcast at cinemas nationwide.  But things haven’t stopped there for Jamie, and Sheffield’s Warp Films have announced today that they are not only making a film musical of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, but that there are open auditions for the movie.

    The creative team behind the original production are all back for the project, with the film being written by Dan Gillespie –Sells and Tom Macrae , who wrote the stage show, and the show’s original director, Jonathan Butterall, back on duty behind the camera. The film is broadly slated for a release in 2020, with filming hoping to take place next year.

    The casting will take place in phases, with the first phase looking for around 30 people aged 16 to play Jamie and his peers. There are no restrictions on those auditioning, save for that they must be 16 and be able to play / pass for a 16-year-old. There will then be other casting phases for the other roles within the film, and everyone is encouraged to apply.

    To be in with a chance for a role you can apply online at www.jamiefilmcasting.com, and upload your audition video there. You can follow on social media using #castjamiefilm, on Twitter and Instagram with the username @jamiecasting and on Facebook using Jamie Casting.

    You can read our review of the original production here and also catch TGUK’s exclusive chat with cast of the show here.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Titanic, The Musical, King’s Theatre Glasgow

    THEATRE REVIEW | Titanic, The Musical, King’s Theatre Glasgow

    ★★★☆☆ | Titanic – The Musical – King’s Theatre Glasgow

    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 King’s Theatre Glasgow until 2nd June 2018