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
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 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.
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
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.
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
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