LGBT+
DVD/Blu-ray: BuddiesTuesday, 24 December 2019
The acclaim of being the first to represent the mid-1980s AIDS pandemic in cultural form was a plaudit that none of those concerned would ever have wished for. With New York as its epicentre, and almost nothing known about the disease that was... Read more... |
CD: Renée Zellweger - JudyWednesday, 18 September 2019
Renée Zellweger already has strong musical cinema form, Her role as Roxie Hart in Chicago garnered her second Oscar nomination. However, playing and singing Judy Garland is a whole different ball game. The film Judy takes a late-Sixties run of... Read more... |
CD: Tove Lo - Sunshine KittyMonday, 16 September 2019
Swedish singer Tove Lo appeared at a time when female physical sexuality was being used as a raw, blunt weapon in pop, when porno chic reached an apex in music videos. Half a decade ago was the time of Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and Miley Cyrus’s “... Read more... |
Torch Song, Turbine Theatre review - impressive return for Harvey Fierstein's seminal gay dramaMonday, 09 September 2019
London’s latest theatre opening brings a stirring revival of Harvey Fierstein’s vital gay drama, which premiered as Torch Song Trilogy in New York at the beginning of the 1980s, the playwright himself unforgettable in the lead, before it opened in... Read more... |
The Shiny Shrimps review - worth the plungeSaturday, 07 September 2019
Whoever thought of crossing the social conscience of Pride with the sporting acumen of Dodgeball? Out of this unlikely union comes The Shiny Shrimps, a joyous dive into the world of gay water polo. Though it follows your typical obscure sports... Read more... |
Chiaroscuro, Bush Theatre review - music, sweet, sweet musicSaturday, 07 September 2019
Identity politics has been around for decades. One of the great things about the Bush Theatre in West London is the fact that it not only stages new plays by a diverse range of playwrights, but also successful recent revivals of modern classics such... Read more... |
Don Jo, Grimeborn review - conceptual style over musical substanceSaturday, 07 September 2019
Described as a "performer-led re-devising’"of Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni - a tale of an arrogant and ruthless lothario who seduced countess women - Don Jo certainly played around with many of the norms we encounter in both sexual relationships... Read more... |
Falsettos, The Other Palace review - affecting search for the new normalFriday, 06 September 2019
William Finn and James Lapine’s musical – which combines two linked one-acts, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, set in late 1970s/early 1980s New York – picked up Tony Awards in 1992 for its book and score, and was nominated again in... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Alun Cochrane/ Sarah Keyworth/ Glenn Moore/ Sophie DukerFriday, 16 August 2019
Alun Cochrane Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★Alun Cochrane is going to treat us like adults, he says by way of introduction, by giving us his take on lots of things in modern society that we may or may not agree with. He’s no controversialist, but he... Read more... |
DVD: Are You Proud?Tuesday, 13 August 2019
Ashley Joiner’s expansive documentary Are You Proud? opens with the testament of a redoubtable nonagenarian remembering his experiences as a gay man in World War II. Though followed by the admission that he had to live his later life as a lie, it’s... Read more... |
Edinburgh International Festival 2019 review: La repriseWednesday, 07 August 2019
Who’d have thought a play about a homophobic hate crime could be so much fun? Well, maybe that’s overstating things a little. But there are certainly lighter moments in La reprise, provocative Swiss-born director Milo Rau’s production with his... Read more... |
The View UpStairs, Soho Theatre review - well-intentioned but needs a rewriteWednesday, 24 July 2019
If good intentions were all, The View UpStairs would be Gypsy. As it is, the European premiere of this 2017 Off Broadway musical set in a New Orleans gay bar firebombed by arson in 1973 serves both as an important reminder of a grievous event in... Read more... |
