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Neil Bartlett and Okechukwu Nzelu @ Coast is Queer

NEIL BARTLETT IN CONVERSATION WITH OKECHUKWU NZELU

Coast is Queer, Brighton & Hove’s LGBTQ+ literary festival, presents an intriguing intergenerational conversation between two of the UK’s most exciting gay writers – Neil Bartlett and Okechukwu Nzelu – at Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts on Saturday, October 8 from 2pm.  Masculinity, queerness, bigotries, age, the writing life – they can’t wait for this discussion, and with their reputations for writing and using language to capture the queer experience this will be afternoon to savour. Join the Coast is Queer for this unique moment in the great sweep of our queer literary heritage.

More info and tickets at the festival website here: www.coastisqueer.com

MICHAEL CASHMAN IN CONVERSATION @ Coast is Queer

MICHAEL CASHMAN IN CONVERSATION

Michael Cashman – activist, politician, actor and biographer – talks about his lifelong campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, taking tea with David Hockney, and sharing his life with Paul Cottingham for 31 years.

Join us at the Attenborough Centre to meet the man who cut up his Visa card in the House of Lords in protest at their support for the Sochi Winter Olympics, resigned from the Labour Party over their lack of Brexit bottle, and was one half of THAT kiss in 1987!

BRIGHTON & HOVE’S LGBTQ+ LITERATURE FESTIVAL

Sunday 9th October

2.00-3.15pm

ATTENBOROUGH CENTER FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS

For more info or to book tickets see the Coast is Queer Website Here 

BOOK REVIEW: Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis by Grace Lavery

Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis

Grace Lavery

Grace Lavery is in their own words ‘a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and 100 percent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster’. In this meta surreal book she solves her “penis problem,” begins receiving anonymous letters sent by a cult of sinister clowns, and sets out on a magical mystery tour to find the source of these surreal missives. Misadventures abound.  As Grace fumbles toward a new trans identity, she tries on dozens of different voices, creating a coat of many colours.

Lordy, imagine reading George louis Borges on poppers, whilst in a lift dropping 45 floors, with a quietly menacing clown, cocks everywhere and dressed in a raspberry crepe onesie. If you can hold that in your head, then read on. What a wriggling writhing altogether bonkers book this is, at first sight a mirage of a memoir, an overview of trans philosophy, shimmering in gorgeous decadent detail of a life gone firmly off the rails, but the engine at the heart of this book is a steady piston, driving the ramshackle baroque narrative at a hell of a pace but with a serene sense of direction. We are driven by grace, respect, intellect, thought.  We may not know where we’re going and it’s going to be a hell of a ride, but Lavery inspires a sense of deep trust in this journey into their trans self.  Some books trumpet that they are rollercoasters, this one is; but like all good thrill rides, we’re bucked in, and really quite safe, it’s the imagination of the designer that’s taken all the risks, we just get to enjoy the gasps, shrieks and laugh out loud moments of pure bodily joy.

Lavery’s prose is absurd, lovely, cosy, and filthy, stuffed with humour, overflowing with philosophical bon mots and shimmy up against the readers mind in a most salacious and disturbing way.  We weave constantly in and out of perspectives, thoughts and ideas of penises and sex, endlessly, kaleidoscopically, relentlessly.  There’s no attempt to make any of this accessible to a non queer, binary cis reader, the blending of fiction and truth can baffle as much as delight but feel tangibly real in the context of this life lived at full throttle. Perhaps that’s the fun of this clever and thought-provoking memoir, offering up stories and experiences that shock, titillate and challenge but steering us to our own conclusions. Lavery don’t care what we think, or do they? I wonder if behind this petulant provocative poser of paradoxes if there’s not an eminently sensible person quietly sipping tea and smirking at our surprise.

‘Please Miss’ is a chimera, and shifts in the hand as it’s read, offering up pastiche, parody, philosophical insight and intellectual challenge, there’s no easy route though this book, or through life it posits, no ‘one’ trans experience, or theory or outcome, but undergoing it is the point, as of life itself. Ideas are parsed with a razor-sharp analysis of contemporary experience, from ideas of gender, a porno version of QI, thudding through popular culture with an fascinating perspective on Mars Attacks and putting Victorian writers like Wilde and Dickins under the scrupulous  lens for their insertions of sexual narratives. All mixed in with a soberly challenging meta narrative of fourth wall breaking author reductive trans theory, which is asking a lot of the casual reader, but this book demands of its reader. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, a worrying amount of abusive stalker clown letters…..

Lavery; famous professor of Critical Theory at an eminent Californian University has an endearing way of circling back around again to their point, via scholarly tangents, curious digressions, startling lunges for the wheel and blind alleys of erudite thought, it’s a heady mixture, and when they eventually get round to it can be startlingly, insightfuly honest and considerate of the viewpoints of the significant others in their life.  I’d adore to be trapped on a train in a snowdrift with them.

Well worth the effort to both read and just cling on, but also left me feeling that I was not quite in on the joke, if of course, there was even a joke in the first place which there must have been as anyone so obviously clever as Dr Lavery would never forget to write it in and then point it out.

Out Now: £14.99

For more info or to order the book follow this link to the publishers website 

 

DISRUPTING THE STATUS QUO : Coast is Queer panel event

DISRUPTING THE STATUS QUO

Panel event with Elias Jahshan (This Arab is Queer)

and Golnoosh Nour (Queer Life, Queer Love)

Chaired by Maryam Din

Two new collections of life writing and short fiction salute the richness of queer life experience – This Arab is Queer celebrates the varied experiences of the queer diasporic community. Queer Life, Queer Love expands upon queer difference, queer curiosity and queer solidarity. Editors Elias Jahshan and Golnoosh Nour discuss the interweaving of the personal and the political in these two daring anthologies with queer activist, writer and speaker Maryam Din.

FRIDAY 7TH OCTOBER

4.15-5.30PM

ATTENBOROUGH CENTRE FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS

More info or to book tickets follow the link here : www.coastisqueer.com

REVIEW: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at Theatre Royal Brighton

Adapted by writer Deborah Moggach from her bestselling 2004 novel These Foolish Things, which inspired the famous film and keeping the gentle warmth of both, this is the opening of this new play before it heads to the West End. The narrative is unchanged, and follows a group of British retirees who all leave Britain feeling they have nothing left to keep  them there, and set out to establish a  new life in India at an opulent and exotic retirement Hotel, although when they get there, it’s not quite as opulent as advertised. The play then explores the different ways that Indian culture changes and alters the views and experiences of the older residents and how their need to change impacts on the owners of the hotel and the local community.   It’s sweet and full of gentle barbed laughs, some pretty close to home for a silver haired theatre royal audience I imagine. But the humour is done with charm and delivered with grace by this experienced cast. With some slight modernisation of the plot to reflect our internet connected world the characters rub against each other in their daily routines, learning more about each other and having their assumptions and bias challenged.

For a long show, it felt that a lot was compressed into the second half, with plot lines whizzing past and denouements being handed out every two mins. With such a large cast, and the main narrative being about accepting change and moving on there’s a need to leave a satisfying feeling of completion with an audience most of whom had some familiarity with the film or book. The first half felt drawn out, the second far too hurried, this pacing doesn’t help. The gorgeous set kept my attention for the long first half as the set ups continued, and although all interesting enough, there’s little real action to grab you.

The set really is superb, evocative, substantial and works without being moved, Colin Richmond who also worked on the costumes getting the shabby down-at-heal former comfort just right and allowing the magic of the place to flow, impressive lighting design by Oli Fenwick moves us across day and night, warm evenings, and busy streets with soundscapes from Mic Pool. Composer Kuljit Bhamra shares authentic tabla musical reflections to support and underline the emotional impacts of the plot.

The ensemble cast is lovely, warm, and engaging and the audience certainly enjoyed the range of talent on stage, the contrasts between the vintage cast and younger members brought out in sweet inter-generational ways which managed to highlight the benefits of both youthful energy and the wisdom sometimes garnered by age.  However, this collaboration of talent somehow fails to be bigger than the sum of its parts.

Full cast and creatives can be found on the Tour website here

For all its charm, and it oozes soft faded focus charm, radiates it…. it’s all a bit ‘Daily Mail Brits abroad meet insipid Indian stereotypes.’ There are some uncomfortable wafts of ‘white saviour’ syndrome in this script and none of it is readily dealt with, jarring lamenting of colonial times contrasting with a caste system that none of the protagonists goes out of their way to understand.  Most of the original discriminatory dialogue has been changed and there’s some new additions showing more acceptance of LGBTQ lives, one of the biggest laughs of the night came from a character lamenting she was never a lesbian and it ‘was too late now’, slightly tempering the deeply unpleasant homophobia left in the first act used to establish the working class credentials of one of the older male characters. Choices…..

A pleasant enough evening at the theatre with a stella cast and the most charming atmospheric set, but it fails to engage and is somehow lacking the heart of the film.

Until Sat 24th September

For more info or to book tickets follow this link to the Theatre Royale Brighton website here

 

BOOK REVIEW: ‘A Working-Class Family Ages Badly’ by Juno Roche

Juno Roche is a writer and campaigner on gender, sexuality and trans lives, and here has gifted us this breath-taking collection of essays which gamble around a range of subjects brought into strong mutual focus by Roche’s lived experience.

The overall affect is to challenge lazy ideas about what it means to be human in our demanding overly complex world; where only real hard honest work to uncover the truths of ourselves can offer any hope of redemption from a society which conspired to trap us, like traps in a trap.

The essays share a passion for fairness, and by contrasting and comparing modern day events with their own working-class history and a forensic analysis of how class struggle impacts family life, uncover a conflation of values which bind the stories together. That might sound heavy but you’ll be too captivated by the storytelling to worry about what you’re learning.

Juno Roche

Some people live a lot in their short lives, Roche has outlived a lot too. In this disarming but charming memoir, Roche shares beautifully crafted stories of wretched experiences shot through with the brilliance of hope, love, and flashes of potential.

There’s a tangible sense of time and place in the books; working class Peckham, dodgy arty Brighton, drugged up messiness on the Nile, salvation in Spain, time spent unexpectedly with a mother because of the pandemic – the prose opening windows into a traumatic past through small gestures and observations.

A sentence or two gives a whole back story, a comma gives insight, a reflection shared offering a re-assessment of trauma and painful memories in the comfort of a well-worn safe place. More than once I felt the tears come before being made to smile by the raw swift wit laid like flowers between the hard spaces.

Roche knows how to tell a story with heart and heft, but also how to use a narrative to steer us towards being thoughtful and understanding. This is writing that takes us somewhere, sometimes through a shockingly forthright landscape. That’s a rare talent, one that they’re modest about.

We’re offered up moments, captured in their minds eye, held up, turned in the light, reflections, refractions, thoughts playing off the shiny surfaces that memory buffs smooth with use. What feels profound is gleefully teased, and a hard won bauble of truth is tossed our way with a supporting wave of laughter.

Roche takes a huge risk in being so honest, but it pays off, the utter candid brutality of their personal narrative, wrapped up in the tenderly weighted prose combines to allow some hard knocks to land safety on the reader’s eyes. It’s part of the charm of Roche to write with such beauty and panache on subjects which have a core of ugly truth, perhaps there’s some softening of brutality by telling it well or allowing those of us lucky enough to have been shielded from some of life’s slings and arrows to understand the compelling demented pressures of early exposure to family violence cascading down the generations and addictions can have on a person, and the things which drive them, sometimes over the edge.

As they sit in the comfort of a beautiful home, made sun kissed sanctuary by hard work, patience and self-forgiveness, Roche teaches us a lesson. It’s one queer folk know well, but it’s told here with warmth and humour that makes the lesson fresh, urgent, and compelling. That we aren’t condemned by our beginnings; that we have agency over our lives if we dare to take it; that being bold and open to love is hard but worth it, radical forgiveness can free us and that always, always laugh as that gives meaning to each waking day and makes our struggles worth it.

This book is a sublime study in being gloriously resolutely queer; defining success by waking each day to sense of gratitude and understanding our ability to change, it’s also very, very funny.

Out Now, £18.99

For more info or to order the book, CLICK HERE.

Juno is also taking part in the Coast is Queer 2022. To learn more about Juno Dawson’s Lovely Trans Literary Salon with Travis Alabanza

BOOK REVIEW: Queer Beyond London by Matt Cook & Alison Oram

Queer Beyond London

Sexuality and Locality in Brighton, Leeds, Manchester and Plymouth

Where exactly is queer England? There has been much discussion of London as a queer city, but what about the many thousands of queer lives lived elsewhere?

From Manchester’s bars and nightclubs to Brighton’s seafront, the attractions of Leeds to the dockside delights of Plymouth, in Queer Beyond London two leading LGBTQ historians take us on a journey through four cities with rich and diverse queer histories. They show how geography, size, economy, city government and local history and culture shaped LGBTQ life in these places, each city forging a vibrant queer culture of its own.

Each quarter of the book has the same set up, a chronological look at the historical development of Queer communities in each city, examining the events, shocks, opportunities, and communities who joined together to work to produce the vibrant LGBTQ+ communities we celebrate them for today. Each different city/town has its own demographic make up which is examined in detail by the writers, allowing the lived experience, opinions and memories of the people who built those communities to be heard clearly.

The book is a collection of oral histories collected with a well-researched framework of political and community development, but it’s much more than that. It’s also a loving testament to the power of Queer community to build the spaces we need and cry out for, and shows how that was done, through exploring events, ‘scene’ developments – clubs, bars and sex spaces, differing groups building alliances to challenge power and privilege and the huge shocks of the AIDS crises and brutal Conservative government imposed anti LGBTQ+ polices of the Thatcher years.  There’s a huge sense of place in these chapters examining how urban geography and psycho geographies intersect to forge  LGBTQ+ people a map for their safe places, and spaces which powerfully enable Queer joy. The book is alive with happy activism, and the voices of people who got off their analogue asses to make change real, and did it together.

It’s a story of hope and resilience, it’s a story of coping and caring and it’s a story of family. Found family; chosen family putting its united foot down and saying ‘here we will build a home for all of us. By us, For us, With us.’  I live in Brighton, one of the places detailed in the book. I was called here by its glittering lighthouse of love from the deepest Welsh Valleys and the themes, values and ideas exposed by this thoroughly enjoyable book echo my own experiences and those of my Queer friends in building ourselves our Gilded Twisted Love Ghetto.

Authors Matt Cook and Alison Oram have captured not just huge amounts of data in this project but the essence of how LGBTQ+ and Queer groups coalesce around a few special core places in the UK, each with special meaning to the communities who live there, but also which call out, clarion, bold and strong to each of us who yearns for a place to be seen.  By interview and research, they’ve captured bold, beautiful oral histories of people who struggled and battled with abuse and systemic prejudice, allowing these voices to share the power of overcoming and celebrating the victories of loving and living authentically.

The authors also wrote the National Trust’s first LGBTQ guidebook, Prejudice and Pride.

It’s a great book, part history, part dream, part political, part romance, part research but wholly celebratory. A book that tells Our story, by those that built and continue to build the spaces we choose to live in.  The range of voices written in its pages reflects the diversity of our community back to us, but time and time again the book comes back to one bold assertion, that together we are the strongest, that together we can make our dreams come true, that together we can overcome.

Recommend

Out now £20

For more info or to order the book follow this link to the publisher’s website

The accompanying website from the research project which produced the book also shares much more historical, visual, and photographic details and research, supporting the book and allowing the rich materials gathered by the authors to be shared further, check it out 

BOOK REVIEW: Flamingo by Rachel Elliot

Rachel Elliot’s sweet novel is an easy read for what appears to be such a hefty book and follows the intertwined lives of two families who happened to live next door to each other and created a place of happiness, safety and good memories. Sherry and Leslie and their daughters, Rae and Pauline – and Eve and her son Daniel.

Sherry loves her husband, Leslie. She also loves Eve. It couldn’t have been a happier summer. But then there’s a huge fall out, and Eve moves on again, breaking the spell. Now Daniel is all grown-up and deeply sad, his girlfriend has left him, he’s lost his home, has giving everything away and after a chance meeting starts ponding on the past, on that place where he once felt so safe and happy, with those cherished memoirs of happy summers. The kind of memories that anchor us to an ideal of happiness which we then always somehow long for.

He decides to return to the house, chasing his dream and we follow the strands of disappointment, unrequited love, and hope back to a secret which, as it reveals itself changes everything but leaves everything the same.

The book is a lovely study of the stories we tell ourselves to convince ourselves our actions are right, that we are doing the right thing, that what we see is what we know. It’s also a rather sweet story of redemption and understanding that sometime the huge things we hope for, but are not ready to try for, can wait for us to be ready. The books jumps between 2018 and the ’80s, dropping in and out of the combined lives and as the narrative picks up pace we start to understand what really happened that summer.

Elliot’s prose is graceful and engaging, I enjoyed her writing, the book flows comfortably with believable characters and a real sense of place. Taking place mostly across Norfolk, with the same people in two different phases of their lives, we begin to understand what might have happened, and how the impacts of parents, relationships, shyness, restlessness and expectations have on us growing up,  not just into adults from childhood,  but also as older people from their early lives.

Elliot’s characters are all complex, slightly damaged people, all doing the best they can, taking chances, wrapping themselves up in work, looking back with anger, nursing long held loves, they feel real and believable. The mix of people allows Elliot to examine different lives from different perspectives, and giving us insights into the lies people tell each other to keep each other safe. They are all kind people too, choosing kindness (or what they think is being kind) as a way of bonding and creating safety. It’s a beguiling plot device which doesn’t necessarily lead to the cosy existence desired.

As the book bounces between the decades, different people drop in and out of the story. It changes style a few times and the chapters become shorter, making the book pick up pace as you read it. There’s a lot of rather delightful power ballads threaded through the book from one of the main characters and I found myself googling them to listen to. Evocative singing and triggered memories of the people in my life who liked them.

Elliot can appear to be a callous author, discarding characters when they’ve done what she needs them to, but the focus changes and there were times when I’d wanted to learn more about a person, or understand their actions deeper, but no such easy plotlines here. Like real life there are times when you just don’t know, that things won’t work out.

The book left me unresolved, like many of the characters in it. That’s the subtle flow of this book; chance. We step in to these lives like a stranger, we step out, we see what we want, we are told what we need to know, sometimes we learn the truth, sometimes that sets us free, sometimes that changes the past and we grow a little more, sometimes it breaks us, but breakdown can be breakthrough.

Flamingo, at its dysfunctional heart, is a story of people learning to let go and grow, to accept and love people regardless of their flaws, to find a radical space in the heart for kindness to flow. It’s a book about chosen family, finding yourself and the way truly being seen is the safest place of all.

This charming book was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.

Out now in hardback & paperback, RRP £9.99

For more info or to order the book follow this link to the publishers website

BOOK REVIEW: Love From the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder

Love From the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder

This is Jill Nalder’s first book and it’s a pretty astonishing debut which grips and holds you tight by the hand, urging you not to go, not to put out the light, not to leave a word unread. There’s something about Jill’s straightforward South Welsh narrating of her life which echos the flint and steel in the soul of this Neath girl.

Industry and passion will get her through and when the darkness envelopes her, she’s a light of compassion, a beacon of hope and a flicking candle in the short nights of many of the brilliant beautiful men she saw die.

Jill’s ability to take stock, to do, to fucking DO what needed to be done, to not let anything stop her, to keep at it, to weep, to be strong is truly inspirational. If you watched the Channel 4 series based around her life, It’s a Sin, you’ll have seen the fictional Jill’s tornado of love hurl itself at the slithering monster of AIDS as it ravaged her community and snatched away so many, so young. (She also played the part of her own mother in the series.)

The Pink Palace of the title was the huge, crumbling very pink London flat Nalder lived in during college, which is brought back to vivid party central life in the TV series.

She lived there with her band of best friends – of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own – she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get.

There’s a delicious honouring foreword from fellow Wales born – Russell T Davies – who shares his love for Jill and the reasons he based It’s A Sin on her life. The book is full of joy, of wonderful anecdotes and insights into lives long gone, letting them flash into our memories with a golden whirl of camp gay radiance.

It’s knowing what becomes of them, which makes these snatched moments so refulgent. Jill’s stories apotheosize her friends, expose the stigma and shame experienced by people with HIV before the virus had a name.

Sharing the enormous efforts of nurses, doctors, volunteers, lesbians, community reps who worked together to support the gay men falling ill across London, Jill shows how a community formed an effective response in the face of government apathy and negligence.  Campaigning for AIDS awareness and research, channelling anger, and simply being there for people at the end.

Russell T Davies is a good friend of Jill and it’s clear from this book how much of her life he actually used as raw material for It’s A Sin and there’s a lot of memories obviously too naughty for the TV but included with relish in this memoir.

There’s a lovely narrative ebb and flow to the book, a lyrical Welshness to it, which allows us to settle down into the story with some joy before the darkness comes in again, then light again, then night deeper than dread, then a dawn, cold, quiet but with things to do to get us through.

Jill is a busy person, quite how they managed to do so much is a miracle. She is also modest, and although allowing the wonderful excitement of her life to shine here, often through the lens of others’ lives, she also shares the gratitude of being able to experience such talented people.

The book grinds on though, and it’s a hard read at points, the speed and ruthlessness of beautiful men dying is hard to take, if (fictional character from It’s A Sin) Derek’s death made you cry, be prepared to share the grief still felt by Jill for the deaths of so many others.

Love from the Pink Palace is just that, a huge throb of love, from a woman who continues to give and share (although she doesn’t mention it here, her charities have raised more than a million pounds for HIV research and support). Her love teaches us that unconditional love will get us through the darkest of times and give us an opportunity to build on the ashes of the glories of those who went before.

By sharing the lives of her ‘boys’ with us and letting us laugh, while we feel the trembling possibilities they all felt were theirs for the taking, Jill does what she promised them. They’ll not be forgotten.

Most chapters start and finish with a quote of poetry, wrapping the adventures and shocks in each in calm poignant words, reflecting the depth and heft of sorrow that this book carries.

I had to take a long walk along the seafront after finishing the book, it’s quite the ripping yarn, ripping at the heart, emotionally raw. As we saw in It’s A Sin and can truly appreciate through her memoir, Jill has the ability to inspire through action.

As Welsh philosopher Raymond Williams said: ‘To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.’ Jill is radical. Truly, beautifully radical.

Out now in hardback, £20

For more info or to but the book see the publishers website here:

IN PICTURES: Pride Cymru 2022

Pride Cymru 2022

Eric Page returns home and enjoys the wonderful atmosphere of Queer love in the Welsh Capital, Cardiff. After the pandemic pause Pride Cymru returned with a massive turn out, blazing sunshine and a huge cheer in Cardiff on Saturday, August 27 as thousands of people marched through the main streets of Cardiff in support of LGBTQ+ rights.

The Cardiff Pride march is a community parade, filled with protest, performance, and some fierce looks, with all of Wales main LGBTQ+ groups, venues and employers taking part along with hundreds  of smaller support and social groups, it’s a lush parade – as they say there.

The theme of Unity and Uniqueness was shared across the parade with a strong focus on inclusion and Trans rights, some of the best placards I’ve seen at Prides this year and a wonderful friendly atmosphere.  With Gay Choirs singing, NHS Wales staff, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, University of Wales, Unions and political parties the mile long plus parade was a riot of colour and calls for equality.  By 11am the streets were lined for the parade with many people bringing their families. Mark Drakeford the First Minister of Wales was seen walking around in a rainbow tie talking to the folk and being gently mobbed by people wanting a selfie, kiss or to shake his hand. It’s so refreshing to see elected politicians meeting their voters face to face, he’s obviously adored by most Welsh folx and tweeted later about his day. 

There was an attempt at disruption by a very small anti trans protest groups who attempted to push their way into the parade protesting Lesbian erasure but seemed intent on disruption.  Refused entry onto the parade, moved on by the police and quickly side-lined by the good-natured parade and supporting crowd who drowned out their rants with 15,000 voices raised as one in support of Trans Rights.

Pride organisers said “There is no place for hate at Pride. And as our parade said today loudly and clearly ‘trans rights are human rights’,” said Gian Molinu, chair of Pride Cymru, in a tweet posted by the organisation on Saturday evening.

The Pride events over two days was thronged with a superb line up – Bimini doing a stunning live set which whipped the crowd up into a frenzy and living their best Cardiff lives for Mel C’s superb set which closed Saturday night. The main stage taking place in the Cultural Quarter with the Celtic Gothic splendour of the City Hall as a background and  the best bank holiday sunshine possible,  it was a huge success. St Mary’s Street, hung with huge Welsh and rainbow flags looked stunning in the bright warm sunshine. The Red Arrows did a thunderous fly over to open the event.  Cardiff Castle, it’s walls bathed in rainbow lights at night, hung with dozens of flags fluttering in the light breeze. It looked fantastic. All the venues were thronged all weekend and packed at night, showing just how well the Welsh capital can party. They’re a friendly crowd in Cardiff, and once again the Pride Cymru team delivered a safe, inclusive, and fun event with a focused passionate and community led activism at its heart.

Pride Cymru have released details and early bird tickets for their 2023 event, more details on their website here:   

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