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  • Gay bar crawls to start in London

    Visiting the London gay scene for the first time or just fancy a night out with some new friends? Then GBC (Gay Bar Crawls) may be what you’re looking for. A guided tour of Soho streets visiting the best gay bars and clubs on offer.

    With so many venues in the heart of London, all offering different scenes, you may be a bit flummoxed as to where to go first. Well GBC have put together a handy tour starting off in a reserved area of a Soho bar giving time for the group to get to know one another and enjoy a few drinks.
    From here the group then tours Soho learning about the famous sites and visiting a selection of bars and clubs. Of course you’ll need more than just one night to enjoy London’s scene, so the tour is a good start to get you settled into the party.

    The tour costs just £30 per person and includes your fist drink, plus club entry, which on a Saturday night is quite a bargain. The first crawl takes place on May 3rd 2014.
    for full details do visit www.gaybarcrawls.com

  • FILM REVIEW | Kill Your Darlings

    ★★★★ | Kill Your Darlings

    The cinematic fascination with The Beat Generation continues regardless, following on the heals of Walter Salles’ take on Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’, which the critics were quick to dismiss when it recently had a limited release in US theatres. We now have this new movie which, set in the mid 1940’s, is essentially a prequel to the movement that was about to begin. It’s Lucian Carr’s story, a central figure in Allen Ginsberg’s coming out, and the wittiest member of their clique at university, who ended up killing his obsessed older ex-lover David Kammerer who just wouldn’t leave him alone.

    It’s a heady period in these young men’s rite of passage into adulthood when despite the war going on in Europe they could indulge in whatever extreme pleasure they wanted too. For the wealthy William Burroughs it was an endless stream of drugs, and he coasted through it perpetually stoned. Ginsberg had shaken off his New Jersey roots, and now at Columbia University could finally shed the responsibility of the demands of his mentally ill mother, and nurture his writing and explore his sexuality. He was fixated with the charming, flamboyant and excitable Carr who incessantly quoted chunks of Yeats and Rimbaud but yet relied on Kammerer to actually write all the essays needed to keep him from being expelled from college. Carr’s past history was gradually exposed as the story developed, and he was revealed as possible the most confused of this very challenged bunch of friends.

    Through Carr, Ginsberg met many of the people that would remain in his life and play a significant part one way or another, including Jack Kerouac, one of Carr’s best friends. (Strangely enough another person that he met… again via Carr… was Neal Cassidy who he developed a major crush on, but there is no mention of him at all.)

    Whilst the movie is ostensibly about the murder and the subsequent trial, it is essentially much more about how this bunch of friends gelled together as a group and how that time really set them on course for what lay ahead and would eventual earn them the label the Beat Generation. Carr does get arrested for the murder of his ex lover, and pleads that it was an ‘honour slaying’ i.e. that he was straight and Kammerer was a predatory homosexual. Both Burroughs and Kerouac were also arrested as they helped dispose of the body resulting in Burroughs being forced to move back home, and Kerouac being forced to marry his girlfriend in return for her family bailing him out. But before this all happened, Ginsberg finally lost his virginity to Carr.

    Newbie director/co-writer John Krokidas worked on this movie for 10 years before he got it to its premiere at Sundance this January. It’s a refreshing look at the loss of innocence… Ginsberg’s and Carr’s in particular as it is hard to imagine that Burroughs ever had it to lose… and a much more palatable movie than ‘Howl’ the slightly inaccessible and tad pretentious vehicle in 2010 for James Franco to try his hand at playing Ginsberg. It may in fact end up being the best ever made of this clique, but maybe that’s too premature a statement as there are probably still many more to come.

    I’m still reeling from the fact that the unknown Krokidas could manage to recruit such a first rate coterie of actors for his first movie… The clue maybe in the fact that Christine Vachon of Killer Films (Boys Don’t Cry, Far From Heaven) is one of the producers. Daniel Radcliffe shakes off his Harry Potter mantle to show what a very impressive talent he really has. He also shakes off all his clothes to show that he can also make out with another man in a very convincing way. Ben Foster (The Messenger) was excellent as the very dry Burroughs, and equally wonderful was Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) as Kerouac, Michael C Hall (Dexter) as Kammerer and with a very small part, Elizabeth Olsen (Martha,Marcy,May & Marlene) as Eddie Parker, Kerouac’s girlfriend. There is an impressive list of supporting cast that included Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyra Sedgwick, David Rasche, John Cullum & David Cross.

    However it was young Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) playing the extrovert Carr with a career defining performance, stole every scene he was in.

    The movie will attract a great deal of attention because of the mere fact of seeing Mr. Radcliffe all grown up, but regardless of that, he is definitely worth watching even if like me you have never sat through a Harry Potter movie!

     

    Available on Apple or Amazon

  • OPINION | Our Gay Wedding: The Musical – A Cringey Cliché Too Far?

    OMG… OMG! From the first utterance of those words at the beginning of Our Gay Wedding: The Musical, I knew that it was going to be just as awful as I was expecting it to be. Featuring the marriage of Ben and Nathan, I feared that showing something like this on television would reinforce stereotypes and not do our cause any good. Sadly I feel I have been proven correct.

    It’s the reinforcement of stereotypes that is my biggest bug bear with the show. For so long there has been a struggle for acceptance, both socially and legally. Barriers have been broken down through those struggles. We have gone from being considered illegal to now being able to marry. There are now more positive and realistic representations of gay people in the public eye instead of the usual camp clichés of yesteryear and that has gone some way in changing the public’s perception of homosexuals. I see that as a massive step in the right direction.

    I recently wrote about the battle for social equality now that we pretty much have full legal equality. I feel that battle is not going to be won with shows like this taking place. All this wedding will do is show gay people to be fabulous, camp stereotypes. That really isn’t the case. We are not all fabulous and most of us are not that camp.

    While I will always defend someone’s right to live in the way they choose, I have to question why Ben and Nathan chose to conduct their wedding in this way. I would be interested to know whether they considered the bigger picture and how it could lead to gay people being perceived in a negative way.

    My opinion is that Our Gay Wedding: The Musical has done us no favours whatsoever, but part of me also has to admire Ben and Nathan. A lot of hard work and effort clearly went into the show. To write, produce and co-ordinate something like this would take meticulous planning and I can only applaud the happy couple on that front. I also thought it was a good call to have a section on gay history and the journey to where we are now. However, despite those positives, the show really wasn’t my thing. It made me cringe. I’m already receiving messages from straight people I know saying how fabulous it was and how the now married couple are so cute, as if objects rather than people.

    I do wish Ben and Nathan all the happiness in the world, though. In the same way that I wish every gay couple getting married all the happiness they deserve. As the happy couple put it themselves, love is everyone. It’s a sentiment I entirely agree with.

     

    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.

  • ALBUM REVIEW | Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Wanderlust

    ★★★★★ | Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Wanderlust

    You know when you have a favourite artist, someone with a specific, unique sound, a person whose albums you buy, time and again because you love that sound? That pop/dance fusion that has you nodding your head as you listen on your way to work?

    Yeah, that! And then, they go and find a new sound, change things around, shift your expectations slightly left of field…
    That’s the latest self-funded offering from Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Wanderlust. It has a folky appeal, an approach that isn’t formulaic, little in the way of dance tracks… and is proving hugely popular with her existing fans, and the legion of fans she won on her recent stint on Strictly Come Dancing.

    She’s credited her trips to the former eastern bloc as her influence on this album, along with working with Ed Harcourt on writing and producing this album – all equates to a lovely shake up. This lady’s not one to rest on her laurels, with a couple of rug rats under her belt (not literally) and an active social media presence, she’s willing to open up and dismiss that long held aloof image.

    Her distinctive voice is here – one of the few english singers who sing with a tangible english ac-cent, rather than the adopted US slant we know and love.

    Track Listing:
    Birth of an empire – towering and epic, its one to tingle your toes!
    Until the stars collide – beautiful instruments and her lilting voice all mixed in harmony
    Runaway Daydreamer – stripped back to basics and sheer perfection
    The Deer & The wolf – toe tapping without being cliched
    Young Blood – slow and sleek, her voice at its best
    Interlude – a showcase for her vocals in a new style
    13 Little Dolls – made me dance round the living room
    Wrong Side of the sun – a clean sound, great lyrics and a wonderful vocal
    Love is a camera – soaring instruments, almost cinematic
    Cry to the beat of the band – that hypnotic beat and the choir, amazing
    When the storm has blown over – again, no gimmicks, no remix, just her amazing voice on show

    All in all, this is a showcase for how her voice has grown over her career, and also a brave choice of work to put out there. Some may say its a vanity project, self-financed because it isn’t immedi-ately commercial, but its seems to be working. Sales have been good, and to be honest, its grown on me – wasn’t too sure on the first listen. This is one of the reasons for the delay in writing this, rather than immediately after the albums release – it is a grower. If I’d written this after one hear-ing, my rating and review would be very different.

    And thats a good thing – sometimes, being too hasty is a bad thing…

  • TV: Our Gay Marriage – The Musical

    The stage has been set, the celebrities are popping their faces in with words of support, the registrars are on hand and Jon Snow is singing his heart out in this big gay musical. Is it a celebration? Or does it another stereotyping slap in the face for gay equality? As always, Twitter tells all. Did you think it’s great TV?

     

    ‘love it, certainly making a statement to all who didn’t support #equalmarriage’

     

    ‘All wedding vows should be a musical from now on’

     

    ‘This is actually really poignant and touching’

     

    ‘Our gay wedding is just gorgeous’

     

    ‘Awesome awesome awesome.’

     

    I Don’t…

     

    ‘This makes Love Actually look like Schindler’s List’

     

    ‘Could of been a great idea… I just think it’s cheapened what saturday 29th was meant to stand for…’

     

    ‘Just further implanting the negative stereotype in homophobes minds. A pointless programme…’

     

    ‘The concept was good but a tad cheesy.’

     

    ‘I’m scared the government will overturn the equal marriage act after seeing Our Gay Wedding: The Musical’

     

    So what did you think?

  • FILM REVIEW | Floating Skyscapers

    ★★★★★ | Floating Skyscapers

    Polish writer/director Tomascz Wasilewski’s second feature film is a dark tragic love story that you immediately sense from the opening scenes that is doomed.

    Although it is Poland’s first ever gay movie, it is so much more a story about the search for one’s identity and about being accepted for one’s own true self and accepting others for who they are. Essentially it’s a movie about love. Love between a girl and a boy. Between boy and a boy. Between a mother and a son, and a father and a son. It is completely heartbreaking.

    Koba is a young man who has been training to be a champion swimmer for 15 years. He lives at home with his mother who makes somewhat unnatural and creepy demands on him, plus Sylwia his rather sullen girlfriend of two years. He is also in the closet and furtively seeks out brief sexual encounters with other male swimmers in the locker rooms after practice. And then one evening it all changes when one Sylwia drags him reluctantly along to an art opening and he meets Michel, and there is an immediate attraction between the two men.

    Michel is open about his sexuality although his wealthy family, with whom he still lives, are having difficulty with accepting it. The two men surreptitiously embark on a relationship which Sylwia suspects but will do nothing about beyond being hostile to Michel. Uncharacteristically Koba falls totally for his new lover and as a consequence much to the annoyance of all, he neglects both women in his life, and his training.

    When it finally reaches the point of no return and the men decide to leave the closet once and for all, Kuba is confronted by an embittered pregnant Sylwia, and the fervent demands of his mother that he abandons Michel completely and become a full time father and husband. This is however not the only tragedy that befalls them, and makes for such a bitterly sad ending.

    By using such austere and somewhat foreboding locations Wasilewski has heightened the darkness in this heavyhearted tale in a society that is still unceasingly hostile to most gay and lesbian people.

    Watching here in the US where the acceptance of LGBT rights is now racing along and is reflected in the recent Supreme Court rulings somehow makes this groundbreaking film seem even more poignant and pertinent.

    Recently I reviewed Out Loud the first ever film from Lebanon that dealt with gay issues, and also ‘In The Name of’ the 2nd ever-Polish gay movie (and this one won the coveted Teddy Award for Best Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year).

    Change is happening, and these excellent movies are both witnesses to the fact, but also more importantly, instruments of the change too.

    Unmissable.

    Floating Skyscapers is Out Now on Matchbox Films

    BUY ON AMAZON | BUY ON ITUNES

  • INTERVIEW | Lisa Stansfield

    INTERVIEW | Lisa Stansfield

    This is the first time I’ve had to interview someone I feel like I grew up with, that I shared some of my most intimate moments with, that made me laugh and cry, made me shake my tushie round the living room – and still wanted to meet up and have a pint with.

    I should point out that when I say sharing the most intimate moments with, we weren’t actually in the same room, town or probably country… but you get my drift, I do mean as a soundtrack.

    The lovely Lisa Stansfield is back. After a brief recording sojourn, she’s here with one hell of an album and is working that whole media circus in her inimitable way. “Seven” (this is her 7th album) is chock full of tracks you feel you know but don’t – her style is here in full force, those vocals, that initial breath before she launches into a track that’ll tear your soul out and stomp all over it, and then make you dance like no-ones watching with the next track.

    I got the chance to chat with Lisa (I still can’t believe it!) and ask the Rochdale chanteuse what she’s been up to and what makes her tick.

    First up, I asked about the influences on this album…

    LS: Same as they always have been really, they are the reasons I got into music, Motown, R&B, Northern Soul.

    So, on this album, any favourite tracks?

    LS: When you make an album, it’s all very personal emotionally. An example is the track Conversation which makes no sense and everyone asks me what it’s about and I can’t tell them – but it makes them cry with its raw emotion.

    It’s been a long time since the last studio album, why the gap and what’s been happening?

    LS: I don’t see it as a gap. I’ve continued working, biding my time. Why bother making music if you have to compromise? These days it feels like if you’re not in the spotlight 24/7 then people forget you. I prefer to make work that’s timeless, doesn’t date, rather than something that’s trendy.

    So how does it feel to be more Radio 2 than Radio 1 these days?

    LS: Things shift and audiences change or grow older. Radio 1 isn’t the same as when I was younger, it seems less mainstream – that’s more Radio 2 these days.

    How do you feel about the current state of the music industry?

    LS: There are 2 sides, manufactured versus integrity. It’s always been like that though. You can feel empowered by taking your time, owning your work, putting your stamp on it rather than being told what to do and with some Svengali in the background.

    Lisa’s personal sense of style has always been a talking point – remember the kiss curl and bakers boy caps back in the day? For Jools Hollands Hootenanny, she showed how to grow up and look classy and still relevant (lisa-stansfield.com/lisa-on-jools-hollands-hootenanny)

    I asked her what input she had on this?

    LS: I’m in control of what I wear, I have to be comfortable with it and not wear something that’s simply given to me. I work with a fabulous stylist called Johnnie Blue Eyes. He understands what I like and I’ll ring him and say “I’m thinking of wearing this with that and those” and he’ll come back with “yeah, but add that too” and it works.

    It’s part of being who I am.

    With it being 25 years since the release of All Around The World, I asked if she still listens to her back catalogue?

    LS: No! Do I f**k! Once you’ve done an album and done the promotion and tour, you tend to move on to create the next. It’s funny but Ian and I (husband and co-writer/producer Ian Devaney) did a Greatest Hits a few years ago, and we had to listen to the back catalogue to choose the material, and when we were done, we looked at each other and said god, we’re good! You forget some of the material you’ve created and hearing it together was unusual.

    Some may be surprised by Lisa’s acting career – having appeared in several films and TV series already, she is set to star in the upcoming title: Northern Soul (imdb.com/title/tt1837613/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_1), an uplifting look at the world of all-nighters, flares and American soul music via a town up North. She stars alongside Steve Coogan, Ricky Tomlinson and John Thomson.

    LS: Love acting, it’s looking at a character, getting inside them, finding their identity. I’m very excited about this film.

    I asked if she had plans to do more?

    LS: I’d love to, and might once my schedule calms down.

    As the clock was ticking, I asked Lisa why she thought she was so popular with a gay audience? Was it her torch song prowess? Her ability to convey emotions so strong in her music? With typical Northern bluntness:

    LS: Honestly, I don’t know but I think it’s because I don’t take shit from people and I stick up for my friends.

    You have to love this woman, she tells it like it is!Feeling daring, I asked if she had an inner Diva she hid from the public? Was she the kind that demanded only yellow M&M’s in her dressing room?

    LS: I think everyone has an inner Diva but to be truthful I’m an inanimate object first thing in the morning, I’m just human! I tend to live with whatever’s given on tour, no major demands – except for monkey balls!

    Forgive me here dear reader, I had to ask….

    LS: It’s a Chinese herbal medicine for your throat. I had a sore throat one morning and couldn’t see me going on that night, and was given one of these and it worked. Now I take them with me on tour. It’s this tiny herb that you put in water and it swells up to the size of, well, a monkey’s ball but it soothes your throat!

     

    And on that note, I’ll leave you to purchase a copy of the wonderful new album, “Seven”.

     

    Me? I’ll be off down the pub with the lovely Lisa to bitch and gossip the night away… ∎

     

     

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Floating Skycrapers

    Polish writer/director Tomascz Wasilewski’s second feature film is a dark tragic love story that you immediately sense from the opening scenes that is doomed. ★★★★★

    Although it is Poland’s first ever gay movie, it is so much more a story about the search for one’s identity and about being accepted for one’s own true self and accepting others for who they are. Essentially it’s a movie about love. Love between a girl and a boy. Between boy and a boy. Between a mother and a son, and a father and a son. It is completely heartbreaking.

    Koba is a young man who has been training to be a champion swimmer for 15 years. He lives at home with his mother who makes somewhat unnatural and creepy demands on him, plus Sylwia his rather sullen girlfriend of two years. He is also in the closet and furtively seeks out brief sexual encounters with other male swimmers in the locker rooms after practice. And then one evening it all changes when one Sylwia drags him reluctantly along to an Art Opening and he meets Michel, and there is an immediate attraction between the two men.

    Michel is open about his sexuality although his wealthy family, with whom he still lives, are having difficulty with accepting it. The two men surreptitiously embark on a relationship which Sylwia suspects but will do nothing about beyond being hostile to Michel. Uncharacteristically Koba falls totally for his new lover and as a consequence much to the annoyance of all, he neglects both women in his life, and his training.

    When it finally reaches the point of no return and the men decide to leave the closet once and for all, Kuba is confronted by an embittered pregnant Sylwia, and the fervent demands of his mother that he abandons Michel completely and become a full-time father and husband. This is however not the only tragedy that befalls them, and makes for such a bitterly sad ending.

    By using such austere and somewhat foreboding locations Wasilewski has heightened the darkness in this heavyhearted tale in a society that is still unceasingly hostile to most gay and lesbian people.

    Watching here in the US where the acceptance of LGBT rights is now racing along and is reflected in the recent Supreme Court rulings somehow makes this groundbreaking film seem even more poignant and pertinent.

    Recently I reviewed ‘Out Loud’ the first ever film from Lebanon that dealt with gay issues, and also ‘In The Name of’ the 2nd ever-Polish gay movie (and this one won the coveted Teddy Award for Best Feature at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year). Change is happening, and these excellent movies are both witnesses to the fact, but also more importantly, instruments of the change too.

    Unmissable.

    Buy Now on Amazon

     

  • Lisa Stansfield Pays Tribute To Gay Marriage With Wedding Outfit On Lottery

    Lisa Stansfield Pays Tribute To Gay Marriage With Wedding Outfit On Lottery

    The rather marvellous Lisa Stansfield has paid tribute to same-sex marriage, by wearing a gothic vibe wedding dress and veil on BBC 1’s Live Lottery show.

    A spokesperson for Lisa said:

    ‘On Saturday, Lisa Stansfield performed ‘Picket Fence’ on the Lottery – she chose a wedding style vibe in tribute to the first gay marriages in UK and Wales.’

    Bravo that woman….

  • Kate O’Mara Who Starred in Dynasty and Absolutely Fabulous Dies, 74

    Kate O’Mara who starred in super camp US. Soap Dynasty has passed away, aged 74.

    Kate O’Mara’s agent has announced to the press that the Dynasty, Ab Fab and Doctor Who actress has passed away aged 74.

    She played Patsy’s sister in AbFab and Alexis Colby’s sister Cassandra Morrell in Dynasty.

    Her agent Phil Belfield said that she died in Sussex following a short illness.

    Recently another AbFab co-star died, Christopher Malcolm, who played Saffy’s father died aged just 67.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales, Shoreditch Town Hall

    ★★★★ | Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales, Shoreditch Town Hall

    This immersive retelling of some of Grimm’s best-loved fairy tales, alongside a couple of less well-known ones, is an extraordinary journey through a world that is both familiar and intriguing.

    The characters find themselves in the basement rooms of Shoreditch Town Hall many years after their tales took place. They have entertained themselves by retelling their stories and invite you to join them as they do so.

    We gather amongst mysterious hooded figures in the entrance hall before Red rushes through, urging the crowd to follow her as she leads us down into the bowels of East London. Each simply-decorated room has been magically transformed to evoke a sense of suspense and wonder, but the attention to detail doesn’t stop there.

    Between performance rooms, the corridors are decorated and secret doors hide uninhabited but furnished rooms, all of which lead the mind through many more of Grimm’s tales as if those characters are residents too. The stories themselves are told in a simple manner which allows the characters to live in our own imagination as brightly as those we see before us.

    The storytellers themselves are Ashley Alymann, Sabina Arthur, Rebecca Bainbridge, Annabel Betts, James Byng, Paul Clerkin, Lindsay Dukes and Simon Wegrzyn and there really isn’t a weak link amongst them. Each holds a particular charm in their storytelling manner and an incredible ability to lead you deep into your own imagination.

    However, there is one in particular who shines through as truly exceptional. Simon Wegrzyn plays a thoroughly captivating Wolf, with a look in his eyes that is altogether as dark and conniving as the character he inhabits. Later in the evening, his Hans-My-Hedgehog is a world away from the wicked Wolf, but every inch as captivating and performed with a delightfully humorous sensitivity.

    Hans My Hedgehog is a peculiar tale, and not one I had come across previously. Half-boy half-hedgehog, Hans is disowned by his father so rides his cockerel to the woods, where he lives in a tree playing bagpipes to pigs (as you do).

    Philip Wilson has adapted Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales: For Young And Old in a manner which remains true to the author’s collection whilst allowing the stories to exist in an entirely new form. Together with Tom Rogers (set and costume), Howard Hudson (lighting) and Richard Hammarton (sound), he has created a wonderful, wondrous world where fiction really does meet reality.

    To experience this magical fairytale world for yourself (and it really is worth doing so), head over to www.grimm-tales.co.uk and book yourself a trip to Shoreditch before 24 April.

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