THEGAYUK

Search results for: “ ”

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Blood Brothers – Sheffield Lyceum and National Tour

    Over the last 29 years, Blood Brother has nuzzled its way into the hearts of theatre goers with its blend of music, comedy, pathos and social commentary.

    The show tells the story of Mrs Johnstone, a single mother struggling to make ends meet. Finding herself pregnant with twins, she realises that she can only afford to keep one of them, so enters into a pact to give one of them to a well-to-do neighbour, Mrs Lyons. The boys meet and become best friends, never knowing that they were twins secretly separated at birth. But as they grow up, their friendship is tested; as their lives take different paths, leading to tragedy. Featuring the songs “Bright New Day”, Marylyn Monroe” and the heart-breaking “Tell Me It’s Not True”, the show still packs out theatres up and down the country and is affectionately known as “the standing ovation musical”.

    There is a reason why this play has been so enduring, and that is primarily down to the superb writing by Willy Russell. The loud first act establishes the characters nicely and is very comedy orientated, if sometimes a little bit too shouty in its presentation. But it is in the second act where the writing shines through, with both the progression and changes of the characters and the genuine drama which captivated the audience as it unfolded, leading to the ending which still packs an emotional gut-punch. The production values of the show were very high indeed, with its detailed sets, costumes and props and the presentation as a whole was relatively polished.

    There are some very good performances in this production, primarily from Sean Jones, who portrays the transition of Micky from giddy schoolboy to troubled young adult with ease, having made the role very much his own over the years. Kate Jarmon as Mrs Lyons provided an impressive turn as a woman descending into madness and paranoia and rounding off the leads were Joel Benedict as Eddie and Danielle Corelass as Linda, both of whom were equally as strong.

    With those performances in mind, it’s a real shame that Marti Pellow disappoints as the Narrator, looking awkward and uncharismatic as he skulks around the set utilising an indeterminable accent whilst over singing and over emphasising every syllable of every word he delivered. Maureen Nolan, offered a really warm portrayal of Mrs Johnstone garnering a genuine empathy from the audience, but whose singing voice was not quite on form on the evening, which is a shame when I have seen her perform much better.

    Having seen the show many, many times, this was the first time I felt that Blood Brothers is now starting to show its age a little, with its overuse of electric drums and echo microphone; but it could be said that in some way, that adds to the nostalgia and emphasises that the socio-economic issues addressed when the play was first written are still relevant nearly 30 years later.

    Blood Brothers is opening its 2015 tour at the Sheffield Lyceum (www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk) before touring the country until May, details of which can be found at http://www.kenwright.com/index.php?id=590

  • Vile Homophobia Directed At Perez Shows What Visage Was Talking About

    Dozens of people have taken to Twitter to talk about Perez with vile homophobic comments.

    During yesterday evening’s programme, Michelle Visage blasted openly gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton for setting back the community fifty years, after witnessing him perform sexual acts on garden furniture and against mirrors in the garden. Speaking to Big Brother she said, “What we just witnessed is an outrage” and that Perez “sets our community back fifty years”, before the RuPaul’s Drag Race judge added, “He’s an embarrassment, I do not want people judging the gay community on this ass.”

    She then went on to explain, emotionally, that she had fought for years along with the gay community for equality and equal rights and that Perez was undermining the progress the LGBT community had made.

    Regardless of Perez’s behaviour, a quick search on Twitter confirmed the harassment that many gay people can endure, when fans of the show called him anti-gay slurs like faggot, queer and batty boy. Some users have even used death threats against the US personality.

    https://twitter.com/SamHenderson_1/status/556206943023673344

    Last year the government introduced a new punishment for those who trolled or bullied people online. Those found gulity could face up to two years in prison. The government is changing the law to increase the maximum sentence for the offence of sending certain items with the intent to cause distress or anxiety. This will mean more serious offences can be dealt with in the Crown Court and there will not be a time limit for police and Crown Prosecution Service to bring a prosecution.

    In the past various openly gay celebrities have endured online bigotry. Last year Duncan James talked about how online trolls had wished AIDS on him, whilst X Factor’s Rylan Clark suffered an internet blacklash in 2012.

    So do we report online homophobia to the police?

  • RESTAURANT REVIEW | Bilbao Berria

    RESTAURANT REVIEW | Bilbao Berria

    Bilbao Berria from Barcelona opened their latest restaurant a 2 minute walk from Piccadilly Circus tube, landing London with their Basque / Spanish cuisine. The restaurant is bang on trend at every angle. Their menu is essentially designed like Tapas / Pintxo. An entire wall acts as a glorious wine cabinet, and a brief giggle fit as we noticed our table was adjacent to umpteen bottles of a wine named “Pricum”.

    (more…)

  • Falling Out Of Love With Facebook

    It’s happened three times already this year. Either it’s a trend or I should start taking it very personally… Messages from Facebook acquaintances sweetly explaining that they were frightfully sorry but they were streamlining their contacts lists to close chums only but hope our paths cross in future… Blah blah blah.

    A quick, unscientific survey of a few friends reveals that it’s not just me this has happened to. Coupled with a large number of people I know who as of 2015 have resolved to use Facebook less, it’s clear that there is a shift going on in our relationship with social media.

    We all know the Facebook friend collectors. Hell, I was once myself. That 5,000 friend limit that Team Zuckerberg imposed became less a ceiling, more a personal challenge. And in a blinding bit of maths, us friend collectors cottoned on that more friends equals more likes equals winning in the popularity stakes. Or giving the impression of it at the very least. You’re never alone with 5,000 online friends right? Right??

    The other snag of friend collecting; that potential headspin of a mismatch between online popularity and the real world. Why go out and mix with people when one can save the bus fare and interact from a laptop?

    But after sitting gawping at a news feed of viral car crash videos, pictures of dinners and the nagging thought of Who The Hell Are You People?, friend collecting soon becomes fairly redundant. With a contact list of several thousand people, social media ceases being a fun, informative ammendum to life and starts being an unpaid administration gig.

    With numbers of monthly users steadily dropping, privacy concerns and controversy over censorship and user name policy, it’s getting more difficult to feel the Facebook love. But the truth is that for all its many flaws, it remains a massively useful resource for keeping in touch and promotion. The downside being of course that overfamiliarity breeds contempt.

    If there is a conscious move to slim down our Facebook account in 2015, then the biggest shock is it’s taken this long for social media fatigue to kick in. Back at the start it was a new platform and no one knew quite how to use it. When it exploded, it became a vehicle for anything and everything. There are times when the sheer weight of images and information that clog our home pages on an average day are overwhelming.

    So much to process. And there are times that just keeping up with everything is a struggle. That feature we all liked about FB at the start, the sharing of information and keeping in touch made easy, has turned it into hard work. No wonder there is a shift towards Back To Basics.

    The former FB buddies who sent me the apologetic message and then hit delete may just have the right idea. A social media experience that is smaller, more ruthlessly edited and, heaven forbd, features only people you know from the offline world and actually like… The numbers of names on the list may drop. But as an exercise in quality over quantity, it may just be the thing that saves Facebook and its like from one day being that website we all used to use in the early 2000s.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • Michelle Visage: Perez Is Setting Our Community Back Fifty Years

    Michelle Visage has broken her silence on Perez saying that he has set the gay community back fifty years with his behaviour.

    Drag Race Judge, Michelle Visage, has hit out at Perez in a diary room moment, saying that his behaviour is outrageous and that he is setting the LGBT community back 50 years.

    During tonight’s episode, Michelle gets emotional and confides with Big Brother that, “What we just witnessed is an outrage” and that Perez “sets our community back fifty years”. Perez is seen in the garden jumping around topless and making sexual noises whilst dry humping the garden furniture, saying, “Oh my God, I just came three times”

    She goes on to say, “He’s an embarrassment, I do not want people judging the gay community on this ass.”

    In an earlier conversation, she admits that they were never friends in the outside world and he “feigns compassion and love”.

    Earlier in the series, Michelle confronted Perez after he failed to reply to her messages and emails. Michelle said that she was big supporter of Perez until he took a “dark turn” and got big headed. It was around that time that Hilton stopped answering her emails. Perez responded saying that he was a “work in progress”.

    Michelle is up for eviction tonight after Perez chose her to face the public vote, after calling her one of the “mean girls”.

  • UK Government Committed To Ending Domestic Violent Crime

    The government is keen to end domestic violence (DV), says a spokesperson for the Home Office, as the future of Broken Rainbow, the UK’s largest DV charity for LGBTs, hangs in the balance.

    Speaking to THEGAYUK Wendy Wilde, the Service Delivery Manager for Broken Rainbow said, “For our funding not to be renewed or replaced will result in the helpline being closed down.

    “We’ve supported over five thousand people this year and if we were to close there are very few other services for them to go to and not one that offers national support in the way we do.”

    When pushed for comment the Home Office issued a statement saying, “Domestic violence and abuse is an appalling crime that this government is committed to ending.

    “The government recognises the important role that the Broken Rainbow helpline plays in supporting LGBT victims of domestic violence and abuse, which is why we have provided the helpline with funding of £120,000 in the last financial year.

    “Decisions on ongoing funding for 2015/16 are being carefully considered and will be announced shortly.”

    In May last year it emerged that members of the LGBT community are more than twice as likely to have
    experienced domestic abuse in the past year compared to those in heterosexual relationships, and almost half of victims say that they didn’t know where to turn for support. When questioned, 45 per cent of LGBT respondents from the 2013 ROAR study on domestic violence and abuse said that they didn’t seek help for fear that they wouldn’t be taken seriously.

    Baroness Barker who came out in 2013 said, “Broken Rainbow has a great record of helping the most vulnerable members of our community to escape and avoid domestic violence. The value of Broken Rainbow’s work is immense, not least the amount of harm which it prevents. Fundraising for such a difficult subject is tough, but I hope that resources can be found to keep this uniquely effective service going.”

    If you are affected by the issues raised in this article please phone Broken Rainbow on: 0300 999 5428 or visit their website http://www.brokenrainbow.org.uk

  • FILM REVIEW | American Sniper

    ★★★★ | American Sniper

    Add American Sniper to the list of good Clint Eastwood movies.

    While it’s not his best film ever (see Unforgiven and J. Edgar) nor his worst film (see the recently poorly received Jersey Boys), it’s a loyal and factual re-telling of the true story of Chris Kyle, a member of the elite Nave SEALS. He was the most lethal sniper in the history of the US Military, having 160 confirmed kills. He was also a husband and the father of two children, but being the best sniper and serving his country were the most important things in his life.

    Kyle (played valiantly and accurately by Bradley Cooper) in the beginning of the film is a ranch hand in Texas. His life doesn’t amount to much, especially after he finds his girlfriend in bed with another man. But after injuring his arm, he decides to join the navy. His commitment for his country becomes embedded in him after the catastrophic events of 9/11. After months of gruelling training, he and his team are sent to Iraq to fight the enemy. And they are tasked with some of the most dangerous missions in the military. This includes heading directly into enemy territory and looking for a man called Shiekh Al-Obodi (Navid Negahban), one of the leaders of the Taliban.

    Kyle serves four tours, in between each one going home to be with his family but getting the pull to serve again. He’s urged against it by his pretty wife Tanya (an amazing Sienna Miller). Even the birth of his two children doesn’t keep him home. He continues increasing his sniper kill tally, which includes women and children who threaten to kill US soldiers. Kyle is also determined to kill a man called Mustafa (played by Sammy Shiek). Mustafa is a Syrian shooter who had competed for his country in the Olympics. He’s also killing the insurgents (the Americans on the ground). Kyle is determined to kill him as he has killed one of his fellow soldiers. The film then becomes a cat and mouse story to dramatic effect, where Mustafa aims to shoot the soldiers but Kyle aims to shoot him. It all culminates in an amazing shootout between the US soldiers trapped on a rooftop in Sadr City while the enemy comes in from all sides, all in the midst of a massive sandstorm. It’s one of Eastwood’s best film sequences I’ve ever seen.

    However, American Sniper doesn’t end there. Kyle, after getting shot in the massive shootout, returns home, but has a hard time rejoining society, and his wife has a hard time getting connected with him. He’s a changed man, but seems to slightly recover after he starts helping soldiers at a local veterans hospital and also helps to train them on weapons and combat tactics to lift their spirits. American Sniper would’ve had a better impact if the film ended after the shootout in Sadr City. This last bit of the film seems to be tacked on to tell the rest of Kyle’s story.

    Cooper plays Kyle to great effect, however, he’s a bit too old to be playing Kyle in his younger years. But Cooper is believable as a soldier during the war, he holds his gun and interacts with his fellow (younger) soldiers very well. It’s a performance that has just won him a nomination for the Best Actor Oscar. Miller is the standout of the film, she’s excellent as Tanya – it’s the best performance of her career. And while American Sniper looks and feels like a good film, the last ten minutes don’t need to be there. American Sniper is adapted by the book of the same name by actor turned-screenwriter Jason Dean Hall. Kyle was shot and killed in Texas in 2013 by a 25-year old Marine Corps Veteran, a veteran he was trying to help.

  • TV REVIEW | Cucumber, Banana, Tofu

    ★★★★ | Cucumber, Banana, Tofu

    He’s a clever bugger that Russell T. Bloke – you know the one who is basically is the godfather of Gay TV.

    Forget Kim Kardashian breaking the internet, Russell T Davies’s Queer As Folk broke terrestrial television with many asses back in 1999 and it looks as though he’s about to do it again with a brand new interwoven, multi-platform series that celebrates sexual and gender diversity, like no other writer or broadcaster for that matter, has ever done before.

    The erect penis has been studied, not just in this office, but scientifically, yes money has been spent on measuring how hard penises are – and they (the scientists) came up with a scale of hardest – from Tofu to Cucumber. Meet Henry, the story which Cucumber, the terrestrial offering from Channel 4. He’s a man in his late forties who hates the gay scene. Absolutely loathes it. It doesn’t resonate with him anymore, the young’un with their apps and inability to hold a conversation longer than their ejaculations. He’s been in a sexless, long term relationship for years and is having a bit of crisis of his placement in ‘the community’; fifteen years on is this how Stuart Jones would have turned out?

    But let’s get this straight, as best we can, Cucumber isn’t Queer As Folk 2.0. It’s a different story, a different set of characters. It’s gay-centric, but packs huge laughs, sex and asks the big questions: What do ‘WE’ want? That’s the big ‘WE’ of course – and while Cucumber focuses mainly on a gay man, Banana delves into the world sexuality and gender and rips it open in a way that could break the digital channel.

    Banana is the other side of the story. The young guns with their apps and their multi-sexual and gender identities and how these can collide. If Cucumber is generation gay, Banana is generation ‘Whatever’.

    Boxes and labels are so 1997/2004, so BBC 3… Generation just-get-on-with-it, are about to have their say, and while viewers on e4 probably won’t bat an eyelid, their parents might just be a little confused at the ever changing landscape.

    Then there’s Tofu an on-demand series, this is where the beauty of interwoven, multi-channel programming come into its own. Prepare to see people, yes real people, from all demographics talk about their sex lives. Even legendary Corrie actress Julie Hesmondhalgh talks sex – and as we heard at the press conference, “you heard it here first…”

    Potentially not a groundbreaking as QAF, (times have changed) but certainly just as necessary. It is about time than the LGBT demographic had something more than a storyline here and there. We want our own series dammit and Cucumber, Banana and Tofu deliver this in loads… (wipe the smile off your face, you dirty bugger).

  • MP CAROLINE LUCAS: Closing Gay Domestic Violence Helpline Would Be Perverse

    Speaking out against the potential closure of the UK’s Domestic Violence charity for LGBT people, Broken Rainbow, MP Caroline Lucas said it would be “perverse”.

    Leading Domestic Abuse charity for the LGBT Charity Broken Rainbow has announced that it could face closure after the Home Office failed to provide evidence that it would fund the charity for another year.

    The news comes as a raft of other mainline LGBT charities and services face devastating cuts, including Terrence Higgins Trust, GMFA and the London And Lesbian Gay Switchboard.

    Speaking out about the current funding crisis, Caroline Lucas MP told THEGAYUK, “If Broken Rainbow is forced to close its services as a result of Government cuts, it will mean the loss of a unique service which has made a real difference to the lives of tens of thousands of people. To see it close just at the time when its services are under greatest demand would be perverse and counterproductive, putting more people at risk, and undermining the excellent work it has done to date. I urge the Government to think again.”

    Speaking to THEGAYUK Wendy Wilde, the Service Delivery Manager for Broken Rainbow said, “For our funding not to be renewed or replaced will result in the helpline being closed down.

    “We’ve supported over five thousand people this year and if we were to close there are very few other services for them to go to and not one that offers national support in the way we do.”

    A Home Office spokesperson said, “Domestic violence and abuse is an appalling crime that this government is committed to ending.
    “The government recognises the important role that the Broken Rainbow helpline plays in supporting LGBT victims of domestic violence and abuse, which is why we have provided the helpline with funding of £120,000 in the last financial year.
    “Decisions on ongoing funding for 2015/16 are being carefully considered and will be announced shortly.”

    If you want to know more about Broken Rainbow you can visit their website www.brokenrainbow.org.uk Broken Rainbow depends on donations and goodwill of its supporters.

    Donations can be made via their website and even the smallest amount can make a difference to someone whose life is at risk.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Fleabag: Epically Entertaining and Daringly Dirty

    ★★★★★ | Fleabag

    Fleabag is a kind of play where you are unsure of what you will be watching. Especially as the sign on the theatre entrance read: ‘Warning: References to sex’.

    Fleabag is a one-woman sixty-minute show that portrays the life of one young woman in the most hilarious, sympathetic and filthy fashion. Loved it. It starts in an interview setting, and then it trails off to her hot encounters and her needing to take ‘hot’ photos of herself to please her many admirers. ‘Take A Dirty Picture For Me’ comes to mind.

    It all happens in the space of 48 hours, and whilst it is funny in the writing, it shows great depth when the theme of feminism is introduced in an almost caricature way. Maddie Rice played the role master-mindedly. She makes her character appear ‘laddish’ and pertaining to be a player.

    Though many things she did and said were crude and filthy, if a bloke said and did the same things as Maddie, to his ‘blokey’ mates, no one would batter an eyelid. But because it was a female, some audience members cringed with discomfort.

    Maddie Rice plays the unnamed character with utter and sheer brilliance. Her wit and humour were 10/10. It was that funny that I thought I had booked tickets to see a stand-up comedian at ‘Live at the Apollo’ show. Maddie really captured the role as written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, with precision and dedication. It felt as though the role was written for her.

    Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s writing was a delicious treat to our ears, and a true and daring piece of work that was worthy of the full-house show it received.

  • Nikon Knows The Importance Of Connecting With The Gay Community

    The Nikon Camera Corporation has shot a new commercial for its “I Am Generation Image,” campaign featuring an African/American married gay couple Kordale and Kaleb Lewis and their three children, whose morning routine selfie they posted to Instagram went viral overnight last year.

    The morning routine selfie, showing the two fathers styling their two daughters’ hair, garnered thousands of favourites, likes and comments; both positive and negative. Many of the negative comments they received were both homophobic and racist in nature.

    In Nikon’s video, the two fathers explain the background story behind the selfie, and they confidently address the negative comments they received and express what they hope for their children going into the future. This is unquestionably one big happy family as this heartwarming video clearly shows.

More posts