Call us now

Author: Brian Butler

A round-up of queer theatre highlights – from Ty Jeffries’ bon voyage to camp vamps and Eurovision: Your Decision

Posted on by Brian Butler

An interview with a camp vamp, a harrowing story of post-war Germany, revelations of being gay in the South African army, and a look back at Eurovision hits tells us just how varied the current queer theatre scene is.

But first, after 12 years performing as both himself and his alter ego damaged cabaret star Miss Hope Springs, Ty Jeffries is calling it a day as a regular performer with two shows in London. As himself, he will play at the Crazy Coqs cabaret room in Piccadilly’s Brasserie Zedel on 27 April (tickets), and then at the prestigious Wigmore Hall on 7 June (tickets).

Hear historic hits live and vote for your favourite at Tim McArthur’s totally camp creation Eurovision – Your Decision, which returns at the King’s Head, London from 29 April – 11 May.

The Camden Fringe comes to the King’s Head too this summer. The Pink List is set in 1957 West Germany. The battle against the Nazis may have ended 12 years ago, but the war against injustice goes on. While most laws have been de-nazified, the law persecuting homosexuals remains in force. Karl is a gay concentration camp survivor, who goes on trial for the ‘crime’ of loving another man. It runs on 16 June, 5 August and 11 & 12 August.

Sell-out queer comedy cabaret night Comedy Fit For A King is hosted at the same venue by Pedro Leandro on 5 & 25 May with acts including Katie Norris, Rohan Sharma, Mudfish, Liv Ello and Lil Wenker.

Daddy, which runs from 17 – 19 May, is a new show where Brent Thorpe – described as the biggest poof in Australia – takes us on a wild ride to discover what life is like as a Daddy and to see how much fun getting older is.

Klub Obskura returns on 1 June as a showcase for alternative drag and cabaret artists who struggle to find a venue.

Rounding off at the King’s Head is Two Come Home from 14-18 August. Ten years after a crime tore them apart, two lovers re-unite at the worst time. Guilt, rage and love collide in this new play featuring a live band. It explores being gay in an impoverished rural community. Tickets for all King’s Head shows HERE

Riverside Studios presents Moffie – a stage adaptation of Andre Carl Van De Merwe’s autobiographical novel about his time as a conscript in South Africa’s apartheid-era military.

It’s staged as a monologue by rising star Kai Luke Brummer. We’re in 1979 and the play tells of Nicholas a recruit who is terrified of being outed and labelled as a ‘moffie’ – a derogatory term for being gay. It runs 5-30 June. Tickets HERE

And finally in this selection: international cabaret star and lyricist Dr Adam Perchard and Oliver-winning composer Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: The Opera!), perform Interview With The Vamp at the Soho Theatre from 10-13 July.

Adam is an old vamp, with one hell of a back story and Richard is here to get the scoop. Adam is billed as an icon of the East London queer scene, so there’s bound to be fun in store for its audience. Tickets HERE

REVIEW: ‘F*cking Men’ at Waterloo East Theatre

Posted on by Brian Butler

Joe DiPietro’s F*cking Men ends with an ensemble line: “you’ll meet someone else,” and that’s the theme of this electrifying 90 mins of erotic, thoughtful, challenging theatre.

It’s a modern version of the classic 19th century play La Ronde. Four actors play 10 gay men and each scene involves two of the characters. As the original title suggests, this is a circular storyline and we end where we began, more or less.

As each scene is a micro drama, the attraction is guessing who will be with who next and what will happen. We’re never disappointed.

First off is straight-ish marine Steve (Jason Eddy), who has his first queer encounter with buff street sex worker John (Rory Connolly). It’s a tense opener. With violence, shame and regret, but we kinda know the marine will be back.

Scene two is some while later and the marine gets off with an almost silent guy in the gym sauna. Marco (Joe Bishop) is a tutor who confides that he can only now have sex with his boyfriend by imagining the partner is someone else.

Moving on we see Marco trying to give a spoilt little rich boy Kyle, (Rory Connolly again), a lesson of some kind. Bishop is great as the tight-lipped, tight-arsed teacher who fears Kyle may be under 18. “ Wanna see my passport?” Asks Kyle, – “ well, yes, if it’s handy,” Marco replies.

Turns out Marco and boyfriend fool around but don’t talk about it. And so the sexual merry go round continues, and the question we get is: “are we meant to have sex with the same person all our life, over and over?”

David Michaels doubles as a rich financier and a top-rated TV interviewer. Rory Connolly returns as a super confident porn star, and Joe Bishop is a delightfully camp but ultimately badly treated playwright who tries to publicly shame Jason Eddy’s new role as an English Oscar-nominated and closeted film star. 

I may even have got some of that wrong as the play proceeds at a dizzying pace! 

All four actors brilliantly delineate the different characters by costume, voice and physicality – not a single weak link here. 

It’s a morality play about lies, deceit, monogamy, love and romance, and its heart-rending final scene will make you cry with its honesty, truth and happiness. 

Steven Kunis directs with tautness, good taste and a good deal of wry humour, and Cara Evans’ set is a clever joy to behold – six perspex panels that double as swinging doors to bedroom, sauna, apartment, and a circular bed where all the erotic action takes place. 

There is nudity galore and lots of simulated sex, but it never seems gratuitous.

It’s five-stars entertainment. Catch it if you can. It plays at Waterloo East Theatre until 26 May. Tickets HERE

Queer Highlights: Brighton Fringe 2024

Posted on by Brian Butler

This year’s Brighton Fringe has a bewildering array of talent on show – with well over 600 events, so here’s my first of two handy guides to what caught my eye among the shows offering LGBTQ+ performers or themes.

Themes of mental health and sexuality are explored in Who’s Been A Naughty Chops, which combines kink, cabaret and empowerment, at The Actors Theatre from 30 and 31 May.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the evilest of them all? Well come find out for yourself in The Hairy Godmothers‘ new sinful sequel, Villains: A Dizney in Drag Parody, at The Bunker @ Fool’s Paradise from 15-19 May.

The Strange Case Of Doctor Dillon, a play about gender transition, can be found at the Lantern Theatre on 30 May.

Clusterfluff is a queer immersive circus being performed at the Ironworks Studios on 23 and 24 May.

Polly Amorous and Esther Parade offer their show Polly & Esther – a celebration of self expression, a joyfully queer blend of drag, musical theatre and cabaret, and a tale of finding family in unlikely places – at the Komedia Studio on 4 and 5 May.

Godz, a sexy circus about the goings on of the Gods of Olympus, is at the Vault @ Fool’s Paradise from 3 May – 2 June.

Summoning Sondheim, a tribute to Broadway’s greatest queer musical theatre maker, is at Bar Broadway from 17 – 24 May.

Andrew Doherty stars in his Gay Witch Sex Cult, which is billed as a horror comedy about gender reveal parties. It’s on at the Rotunda Theatre on 14 and 15 May.

The Queer Comedy Showcase does just what it says on the tin and it’s hosted at Bar Broadway by Ali Jay from 18-25 May.

A permanent favourite at the Fringe, the Lady Boys of Bangkok are back with their 25th anniversary tour for a whole month of lip sync treats and cross dressing at the Sabai Pavilion from 3 May – 2 June.

You Shall Not Yass is classic Tolkien with a gay makeover. It’s Middle Earth with drag and cabaret. Catch it at Ironworks Studios on 6 May.

Sex Academy Open Day is apparently the queer sex education you missed out on. Learn more by attending at the Arcobaleno from 9-30 May.

How far would you go to be “good”? Praise Kink is lesbian cabaret star Billie Gold’s candid disclosure of her past life and an affirmation of self-validation. It’s at Ironworks Studios from 18-20 May.

Mark J Dixon presents Big Fat Gay in the snug bar at the Three Jolly Butchers from 23-26 May.

And finally in this selection, Stephen and Jeff’s love for each other is tested when they’re forced to confront a face from their past in Locusts, at the Lantern Theatre on 26 May.

Next time: more gender revealing, the Iris LGBTQ+ Film Festival on tour and Happily Ever Poofter, starring the only gay prince in the kingdom.

Tickets HERE

REVIEW: ‘Punchline’ by Andrew Kay with Brian Capron at Lantern Theatre

Posted on by Brian Butler

Comedian Terry has got about as low as he can get in his career. He’s the compère for strippers with a second act spot to tell jokes before the band takes over.

And so, over 55 minutes he tells us his back story, cutting in and out of gags from famous comics and revealing bit by bit his terrible, violent past life at home.

The dark secret is introduced almost casually, the butt of a joke or two but finally it’s all too much for Terry. Andrew Kay’s monodrama Punchline has a double entendre title – it’s the pay-off of a gag and a tag for Terry’s home life.

It’s stunning, poignant and perfectly pitched by Brian Capron alias ex-Corrie serial killer Richard Hillman. Rupert Charmak’s direction is subtly understated, with beautiful touches like Terry’s obsession with physical details, like the position of his unsmoked cigs, his carefully folded trousers, the literal application of spit and polish to his stage shows.

Brian plays it all low-key, which makes the tragedy of his past seem almost mundane. During the show we meet a panoply of Terry’s comic heroes – Max Miller, Tommy Cooper, Jim Davidson, Les Dawson, and Terry has their voices off pat.

What Andrew, Rupert and Brian create for us is a masterclass in portraying the sad clown, and it all seems spontaneous, honest, viscerally real and now. 

Terry is a gentle, damaged soul, but ultimately a survivor, and re-telling his story to us or to himself – as 50 of us can’t be in his workingmen’s club dressing room – seems a cathartic experience. 

And if all that sounds heavy, it’s not played that way. We get some classic jokes like “I still enjoy sex at 74 – well I live at 75 so it’s not far to go”.

Rumour has it that the team plan further venues and even a tour for the show. I’ll keep you posted – it’s a little gem of theatre.

Punchline was at the Lantern Theatre, Brighton.

Queer East Festival to shine light on queer East and South East Asian film

Posted on by Brian Butler

Lead Pic: Lovebound

Founded in response to the systemic lack of East and South East Asian representation on stage, screen and behind the scenes, the Queer East Festival was formed in 2020 and has earned its place as a premier LGBTQ+ film festival.

Its events this year are across London from 17 – 28 April and then later in the year across the UK. Its programme includes the 20th anniversary screening of Chinese-American romantic comedy Saving Face, and the 50th anniversary screening of the once-considered lost Japanese film Bye Bye Love.

Bye Bye Love

The opening gala at the Barbican screens the coming-of-age A Song Sung Blue (China 2023), which follows 15-year-old Xian as she experiences a summer she will never forget, due to an infatuation with another girl.

The closing gala, at BFI Southbank, features Bye Bye Love, which follows young Utamaro and Giko on a doomed road trip through Japan.

The rest of the festival spans 57 years of film making and 10 countries, including I Am What I Am (Japan 2022), about a young asexual woman in a world where love rules supreme. Saving Face (USA 2024), which explores a complex mother/daughter relationship, where Wil is a lesbian in love with dancer Vivian.

Asog

Asog (Philippines 2023) has documentary and feature film mixed, and it’s billed as a screwball tragi-comedy about typhoon survivor non-binary teacher and comedian Jaya, who tries to win a beauty pageant.

Summer Vacation has androgynous female actors playing boys in a boarding school where a pupil has died.

Sara (Indonesia 2023), which has a stunning performance from trans actress Asha Smara Darra, follows a trans woman returning to her village to attend her father’s funeral.

If It’s With You

If It’s With You (Japan 2023) follows two schoolboys whose relationship develops into something unexpected. Immersive events, workshops and even an event Steamy Intimacies, at Hackney Wick Community Sauna Baths are on the programme. Short films and dance programmes mean this is more than just your standard film season here. 

Ticket information HERE

On stage: Drag Ballet, a hot cleaner in marigolds, Princess Diana resurrected and two gay sauna visits

Posted on by Brian Butler

Drag ballet, a Hollywood legend in the closet, a hot cleaner in marigolds and two gay sauna visits all feature in my latest round-up of queer shows in Brighton and London

Mark Gatiss, the brilliant writer of Sherlock and Dr Who, has put together a series of monologues that chart LGBTQ+ history milestones. Queers, which runs from 11-13 April at Brighton Little Theatre, is funny, tragic and riotous and covers everything from the 1957 milestone Wolfenden Report, to the HIV/AIDS crisis and the debate over the age of consent.

Actor and director Allan Cardew, who recently had a great hit with Brighton’s Alternative Panto, is one of its performers. Tickets HERE

Giselle: Remix

Queer icons Kit Green, Jonny Woo and Lavinia Co-op all make guest appearances during the run of Giselle: Remix at London’s Pleasance Theatre from 10 – 27 April. It’s billed as an evening of drag divinity, cabaret excellence, staggering choreography and jaw-dropping lip sync, created in collaboration with dancers from the Royal Ballet.

Giselle: Remix will be performed to a soundtrack of queer music, including Garland and SOPHIE. And on 20 April there’s a special late night performance with added extras. Tickets HERE

Coming Clean

Coming Clean is Kevin Elyot’s predecessor to his famous My Night With Reg, and plays at the Turbine Theatre until 20 April. Directed by Andrew Beckett, previous boss of the now closed Above The Stag, it’s set in 1982. Greg and Tony live in Kentish Town. They’ve been together for five years and seem to have the perfect relationship. And it’s an open one. Their only rule: never sleep with the same man twice. But then drop dead gorgeous cleaner Robert arrives and the fragile foundations of their sexual commitment are thrown into jeopardy. Tickets HERE

Awkward Productions‘ cult hit comedy Diana: The Untold And Untrue Story returns to London at the King’s Head from 17 April-5 May. It combines drag, multi-media, audience interaction and puppetry to create queer joy in an unforgettable, outrageous, inaccurate and downright fake evening of fun. Writer, director and producer Linus Karp is Diana and co-director Joseph Martin is both Charles and Camilla. It also features the late Queen Elizabeth and even God makes an appearance.

Diana: The Untrue and Untold Story. Credit Dave Bird

I saw it online in lockdown and I laughed out loud at my little iPad screen. It’s hilarious and you won’t feel neutral about it, I can assure you. Tickets HERE

The Tailor-Made Man runs at Covent Garden’s new Stage Door Theatre from 9 May – 3 August on selected dates. Written by Claudio Macor, it’s a powerful true story of the Hollywood studio system in its heyday, its hypocrisy and the star who gave up everything for the man he loved.

William ‘Billy’ Haines, a popular MGM star in the 1920s, was fired by studio boss Louis B Mayer because he was gay. He refused to give up his lifelong partner Jimmie Shields and also refused to marry the silent screen vamp Pola Negri in a sham lavender marriage. Tickets HERE

BILLIE GOLD

Brighton-based cabaret performer Billie Gold asks how far would you go to be good in her one-woman show Praise Kink, which plays at Brighton’s Ironworks Studios as part of Brighton Fringe on 18/19/20 May. She told me: “it’s about finding the power of self-validation and lesbian identity – and it’s not about kink, but it might go a little dirty.” It’s from the mind of a lesbian ex-sex worker, now full-time drag performer. You’ll either be on the edge of your seat or standing on it. Tickets HERE

In May and June you have not one but two shows set in gay saunas to thrill and educate you. Dan Ireland-Reeves is an uncompromising and brilliant actor/director whose monodrama Bleach was a huge success in London and then on tour including Brighton’s Ironworks studios. That gave an insight into a male sex worker whose life and very existence unravelled before our eyes. It was stunning theatre.

Sauna Boy

Now Dan is back, fresh from a tour of Australia and the US to give us his latest piece Sauna Boy, which – as the title suggests – is set in a south coast gay sauna. Dan told me it’s semi-autobiographical and added: “I’m obsessed with sex – well, not the physical act, but I’m obsessed with how it exposes people, their desires, their needs, their inner workings. To know what goes on behind closed doors is endlessly fascinating”. Sauna Boy is at Stage Door Theatre from 29 May – 1 June. Tickets HERE 

Wet Feet runs 18-29 June at London’s Union Theatre. Nathan is an out and proud gay man and Franko is trapped in the shadows of the oppressive legacy of Section 28. They find themselves in an awkward encounter in a gay sauna and as the steam rises on their escapades, a hilarious, heart-warming connection deepens. This is Michael Nero’s debut play. Tickets HERE

Corrie killer takes to Brighton stage

Posted on by Brian Butler

Brighton writer, artist and TV presenter Andrew Kay – best known for his electrifying queer monodrama Morning Glory –  has now called on legendary Coronation Street serial killer Brian Capron (aka Richard Hillman) to star in his latest play Punchline, which will be at Kemptown’s Lantern Theatre from 12-14 April.

Morning Glory starred two prominent Brighton performers – Jason Sutton and Allan Cardew – and Brian is no exception, being a Brighton resident for many years.

Although it’s 20 years since Brian’s soap opera trail of murderous acts, he’s still remembered and recognised and he told me that his TV apperance led to a huge boost in his acting career. The third creative in the team is TV and film director and actor Rupert Charmak, whose short superhero film I Am Super was recently shot in Brighton.

Punchline’s plot concerns an older club entertainer/comedian who bemoans how the comedy scene has changed – a lot for the worse- but beneath this layer of dark humour there lies a disturbing secret in his private life. No spoilers except to say that the play deals with domestic abuse but not in the way you might expect it to.

The play was specifically written for Brian, who saw Morning Glory and asked if Andrew had anything he could perform. The script has evolved over the last year or so and is still changing in rehearsal. Brian told me: “it’s daunting doing a one-man show, but I’ve woven some personal bits from my own life into the lines- some of it is very close to me and my career.”

And what a career – he was a good-natured schoolmaster in Grange Hill and also in Where The Heart Is, but Corrie fame led to many big opportunities, including work at the National Theatre and Guys and Dolls in the West End. In his days in Corrie audiences topped 20 million compared with today’s figure of around six million. His storyline secured Corrie’s first BAFTA award. And Brian didn’t entirely shed his villainous nature, playing baddies regularly in panto.

Brian worked with director Rupert on I Am Super and describes him as  “an actor’s director”. Rupert trod the boards at London’s Globe Theatre and has worked on TV detective series Grace which is mostly filmed in Brighton. He told me: “theatre is still what I love best.”

Tickets for Punchline HERE and look out for my review of the show only in Scene magazine

Clowns, a one-way mirror and the Cuban revolution – that’s Brighton Fringe for you

Posted on by Brian Butler

Queer clowns who think they’re cats, a man in his pants watching the bin man through a one-way mirror, and the folk music of the Cuban revolution – what a launch party for the 2024 Brighton Fringe.

The biggest arts festival in England promises its usual quirky, crazy, annoying mix if its launch is anything to go by. Speaking at the Ironworks Studios, Fringe bosses Amy Keogh and Duncan Lustig-Prean promised excitement and innovation and looked forward to the Fringe’s aspiration to have some activities around the year – not just in May.

Plans are in hand for workshops, mentoring and nursery events to foster emerging talent. But for now the spotlight is on the more than 600 events already announced and mostly on sale and the 100 + venues that will pop up in the city.

Brighton Fringe is proud of its bursaries and awards that allow performers to afford to appear and develop their work: artists like Jonathan Oldfield, whose eclectically funny look on the world is through a one-way mirror in an ex-solicitor’s office which is now his home, he tells us. It’s midnight, Tuesday and as usual he’s in his underpants watching the bin man empty the bins – only this time the bin man winks at him – what’s next, who can tell?

Oceana Bertino-Kavadellas tells the story of her great grandfather and the Cuban revolution of 1958 through song and narration and her high-pitched pure acapella voice is absolutely mesmerising in her show El Viaje.

The queer trio that is Funny Business present A Clown Cabaret, which is a love letter to the absurd, and features two clowns from the London drag scene – Sean the Cheap, and Cabbage the Clown. Expect milk drinking, ABBA played on the recorder and wild free dance.

I’ve started to dive headfirst into the 600-event diary so look out for my preview with my personal and idiosyncratic picks of the Fringe – only in Scene magazine.

Brighton Fringe runs 3 May- 2 June. Full details HERE

FILM REVIEW: Riley

Posted on by Brian Butler

Benjamin Howard, who wrote and directed the film Riley, says it’s based on his own struggle with his sexuality as a US high school football player.

But to my mind this angst-ridden drama doesn’t quite score the points it should. It opens enigmatically with a pretty male teenager – Dakota Riley – hooking up with a much older sex worker in an isolated countryside house. It’s a promising start, as we learn the teen is a footballer, but soon the rough treatment he receives makes him back off and become shouty. It’s not a good omen for him or us.

Immediately we cut to the rigours of football training, with its homoerotic undertones – the toxic masculinity of the locker room, homophobia, insecurity and latent anger and violence.

It could be a heady mix, but somehow we really don’t sympathise with Dakota as he seeks to understand his homosexuality and hide it from team-mates, family and aspiring girlfriend.

He’s exasperating and though clearly into male porn on his phone, keeps telling anyone who will listen that he doesn’t know who he really is.

Added complication comes from his football coach, who is his ex-footballer father, forced to go into coaching after an injury cut short his possibly glittering career. Dakota doesn’t want to just be “Carson’s kid”, but his rebellion is like all his other actions, rather tame.

It’s an interesting theme that Howard explores, but the emotional arc of Dakota’s journey to self-realisation doesn’t seem to be in his own hands. The hooker and the girlfriend are his guides. And the girlfriend’s grandma’s saying “the fullest life is lived in truth”, is the one axiom he eventually seems to be prepared to follow.

Jake Holley, though 10 years older than his character, is totally convincing as the muscular teen with pretty boy looks, who gets involved in soft porn situations with the class gay during “French lessons”, and with his best team buddy, with whom he shares a bedroom and midnight sexual fantasies.

Surprisingly for a film about football, we don’t really see any play, but I guess that might be for budgetary reasons. Instead this is an intimately filmed psychological game of the mind, and worth a viewing despite my reservations.

Riley is being screened at the BFI  LGBTQ+ Flare Film Festival, which opens this week. For screenings CLICK HERE

Spotlight on : the 38th BFI Flare LGBTQ+ London film festival

Posted on by Brian Butler

The 38th BFI Flare London LGBTQ+ film festival runs at the BFI Southbank from 13-24 March and online at BFI Player ,and there’s lots to see in its three themed sections, Hearts, Bodies and Minds. There’s a staggering total of 33 world premieres, 57 features and 81 shorts from 41 countries.

I just had a tiny toe in its water to give a hint of the goodies in store. Under its theme Bodies, is Backspot. Riley begins to crumble under pressure when she and her girlfriend are selected for an elite cheerleading squad. Departing Seniors is a tongue-in-cheek Queer remix of slasher films. Making it to graduation is the least of these high school students’ problems with a murderer in their midst.

I Don’t Know Who You Are features a young gay man who races against time to get funds for HIV prevention treatment, following a sexual assault. Love Lies Bleeding is Rose Glass’s gripping and gory follow-up to St Maud. It finds a lesbian couple drawn into a web of violence in 1980’s small-town New Mexico.

Riley is a powerful revelation of Dakota Riley’s secret gay life which threatens to destroy him and his star-playing football career. Slow tells the story of Dovydas and Elena, who form a strong connection, but when Dovydas reveals he is asexual, everything changes.

The Summer With Carmen is a seductive and smart gay comedy on a cruisy Greek island. In Tops, it’s the hilarious Trans 1990’s  breakfast tv show you didn’t know you wanted.

We Are Perfect takes us to an open audition for a rare Trans masculine role, which attracts 300 candidates. It uncovers raw talent and revolutionary spirit. In the Shorts section of the festival I found Connect/Disconnect. The first few seconds of an encounter can surprise and unsettle.

Cosmic Dreams: Through The Looking Glass has techno-sexual deviants, pixelated dolphins and sensuous goddesses, who all reside in the queer multiverse. Pleasure Me is is a set of short films exploring queer sex and desire. There’s beauty, frustration, joy and heartbreak.

Check out the full programme at bfi.org.uk and if you subscribe to BFI Player you can get an online selection of the festival too.

Latest News

Birmingham Birmingham’s Flatpack Film Festival to explore ‘Chinese Queers’
Arts A round-up of queer theatre highlights – from Ty Jeffries’ bon voyage to camp vamps and Eurovision: Your Decision
International News Celebrate the diversity of LGBTQ+ families with the 13th annual International Family Equality Day on May 5
Pride Get in on the ‘Love Action’! The Human League to headline this year’s Bristol Pride
X