The Gallopers
Jon Ransom
Review by Eric Page
In this second novel from Jon Ransom, three men are bound together in a blistering story that spans 30 years, from 1953 into the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic, The Gallopers is a visceral and mesmerising novel of deceit, desire and loss.
Ransom delivers an atmospheric tour-de-force, skillfully evoking the harsh realities of queer life in 1950s rural England. The Story follows Eli, nineteen years old and living alongside a cursed field with his strange aunt Dreama. Six months before, his mother disappeared during the North Sea flood. Unsure of his place in the world and of the man he is becoming, Eli is ready to run.
With a surgeon’s precise prose, Ransom summons the enveloping flatlands and drainage ditches of the Fens, using aquatic metaphors to mirror the depths of desire and shame simmering beneath his characters’ surfaces. Ransom’s visceral sense of place is a triumph – the grey, watery expanses become a looming, menacing presence haunting the decaying family farm at the novel’s center. Like the treacherous currents, interpersonal dynamics shift and eddy, with buried secrets constantly threatening to surface and drown those clinging to propriety. The land itself seems to hold an ancient knowledge, indifferent to human struggles yet inescapably shaping them.
Amid this bleak, liminal landscape play out stories of queer awakening, passionate red-hot lusts, obsessive sexual encounters, along with repression, and persecution. Ransom avoids tidy narrative arcs, instead rendering his characters’ contradictions and inner conflicts with nuance. We see the myriad ways one could experience Queerness in that era – from self-hatred and denial, to furtive expressions of desire, pseudo domestic sexual arrangements, to hard-won self-acceptance. Yet all exist under the spectre of violence, whether psychological or physical.
Women’s lives are rendered with particular focus on their subjugation and suffering. With few options beyond marriage, many are treated as domestic assets, subjected to male dominance. This grimly realistic backdrop illustrates how the pressures of a patriarchal society wound and distort family structures and post war Britain struggled to put the past in perspective and move on.
Ransom offers us a sensual landscape of lust as detailed and full of wild unknown possibility as the physical is known and mapped. Eli’s sexual experiences are painted with a physical erotic rhythm as he ricochets between two very different men and their ways of being sexual. These encounters and semi relationships are believable, hot and immediate, showing Eli as a man struggling against homophobia and stigma, finding affirmation in sex but confusion in the lack of honest emotional contact in the cauterised bruised ways of his lovers.
In the absence of safe harbours, some of Ransom’s characters turn to folk rituals and magical thinking, grasping for illusions of control and meaning. Their superstitions and local mythologies offer refuge from trauma. While outwardly fanciful, these belief systems reflect very real psychological needs forged under oppression and dislocation.
The stifling societal repression of the era looms large. In this climate of pervasive trauma, we understand why the characters turn inward. Their rituals and folk beliefs provide an illusion of order and meaning in an outwardly implacable world.
What makes “The Gallops” so powerful is how it charts the myriad ways one can experience queerness – from self-denial and self-loathing, to silent endurance and hard-won acceptance. Ransom renders his characters in full vulnerability and contradiction. We see the costs of secrecy and shame, but also the resilience of queer bonds forged in the shadows.
As with his first novel, Ransom showcases masterful restraint – his sparse language conjuring entire emotional worlds through careful implication. With few but exacting words, he evokes the hovering risks of being outed, the fragility of human bonds, and the quiet heroism of persisting authentically amid suffocating norms. The experimental form of the books, with it’s middle section a one-act play titled The Gallopers, written by Eli three decades on, and based on a different perspective of the protagonists didn’t quite land for me, adding nothing to the book and distracting me, perhaps this is Ransom’s point here.
The Gallopers is a haunting, immersive portrait of queer lives in a bygone era. Ransom’s willingness to depict the nuances of LGBTQ experiences – from anguish to resilience – and his bold unequivocal exploration of men finding sexual comfort with each other, makes this a vital work of Queer meta historical fiction. With his atmospheric command of setting and piercing insights into the human condition, he has cemented himself as one of the most exciting voices in the literary canon today.
Out now £14.99 hardback
For more info or to order the book see the publishers website here
To start, Fool’s Moon: Dance Plague had all the makings of a sophisticated dance school end-of-term comedy show. And no, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The performers were committed and the audience was positively generous with their applause. The show’s premise—examining the inexplicable dance plague through a blend of clowning and dance—was intriguing, even if the execution occasionally felt hollow.
The narrative—or should I say, the nebulous string of scenes pretending to be a narrative—was the show’s Achilles’ heel. The historical backdrop of the 1518 dance plague is ripe for exploration, but the story here was thinner than a drag queen’s patience with polyester. Instead of a cohesive thread, we were handed a series of vignettes that felt disjointed. Yes, it’s an endearing kind of chaos, with the Dancing Trio keeping a lively pace when ever they were on stage, but gentle chaos nonetheless.
These short life ‘acts’ provide the narrative thrust. A quick intro allows us to understand the journey we’re on and these disparate actions—from growing up and wanting to play with your friends, to a manic flash of puberty, eggs are smashed whilst odd powerful dances takes place, taken together they create a unique tapestry of life’s moments. We are gently invited as audience members to supply narrative choices at key moments of the show, whether these actual influence what happens or not is difficult to judge, but they certainly engage and bring laughter. Our own experiences of love are gently teased out of us to general delight.
Paulina’s costumes are serious fab, floaty tulle, off the shoulder diaphanous dressing gowns, read leather coats and chic Parisian glasses, with some wonderful reveals and changes to provide physical laughter supporting these burlesque elements of the show, i adored the extravagant BabyJane tulle bow with a towering wig adorned in roses. These outfits are ingeniously explored, deconstructed and discarded, offering character depth as ‘life’ moves on. Gloves are used to wonderful comedic effect in this show, it’s probably the best use of gloves I’ve ever seen, so very very funny, matched perfectly to a growing sense of alarm in the performers eyes. The show opens with Paulina in the dressing room, back to us, catching our eyes in a mirror as she finished her make us, wonderfully intimate and subversive start. She’s conversing with the sound tech via radios, the sound was never quite loud enough to catch most of the dialogue which was a pity as it was a funny running joke.
I liked the existential thread that ties the acts together, but it would benefit from delving deeper into the mythological concept of ‘Puella Aeterna,’ (an eternally young woman filled with a zest for living) More context would enrich the audience’s understanding and engagement with the various routines. But this is perhaps a critics demand and not something from an afternoon audience on a hot sunny spring sunday. The Audience seemed more than happy with following along. We end with ageing and death, of course, handled with charm and gentle humour and real roses lad down to rest on her body, that had been handed out to various potential lovers earlier in the act.
Author David Rees
The staging and decorations are vintage fairground with a modern aesthetic totally on point and hand painted by local queer muralist Dave Pop, the ethereal atmospheric electronic soundscape by The Fast Set waves it’s teasing audio over the spaces and original costumes by House of Flying Stitches offers up a fantastic array of superb outfits, drawing attention to each performer in a cheeky, courturured way. There’s some serious fashion rocking here, including a superb purple demi-caped gold 
Director Carnesky has looked at our voyersitic and patriarchal attitudes towards performers and particularly the Women who have chosen to live life through full octain expression and feats of astonishing skill and re-views them through a decolonised, deconstructed contemporary, diverse feminist and queer lens, with them having full agency.
Based on historical research by Carnesky, Showwomxn’s cast of over 33 women and non-binary performers explore hugly famous artists of their time and also look at the stories which made these people and their groundbreaking acts such a magnetic draw for our ancestors. We have recreations of 1930s sword maestro Koringa, who also worked for the French resistance and 1880s aerialist Ms LaLa who hung from her teeth and was painted by Degas. Wandering around with the music, ohhh’s, ahhh’s and palpable excitement of the crowd on this sunny Saturday afternoon we gently glide around knife balancing body stunts, dangerous wrestlers, fire whippers, an aerialist with a hair raising act, a disturbing writhing contortionist, glass walkers, dancers, drag kings and other surreal performers. We are reminded with the seagulls and tourists that the Seaside has often been a place to rediscover yourself, reinvent or runaway to find yourself, I enjoyed the diverse Brighton audiences wandering in and out of a curated space.
We enjoyed Carneskys’ welcome, explaining what to expect and what to see, laughed out loud at the mischievous ancitis of the wrestling due, were seriously impressed by sharp sword full body balancing and entertained by surreal performances of Almodóvar style mannequins, my personal highlight the Whip Woman and her impressive fire whips!
This Showwomxn Sideshow Spectacular certainly makes us reflect on a host of preconceived cliches of historical circus and carnival life, and on a deeper level connects us with the thrilling freedom these performers must have found outside the normative bounds of the societies at the time. In between the fascination and thrills it asks us to look at our attitudes to female representation, our understanding of racism and colonialism and how we then engage with carnival and circus performers and asks is it snobbery which stops us treating and vererating these lifelong trained artistes as we would opera singers or harpists. But as soon as we start to slip into serious reflection it drags up back with a jolt into pure spectacle, thrilling, chest throbbing, breath catching delight, where there is just the now, and the astonishing things we are watching with our fellow gawking punters.
This is certainly a Sideshow Spectacular, leaving the crowds entertained and delighted. My companion said she enjoyed the clever subtle representation of artistes and the aerialist was her highlight spinning under the bright blue sky to Yma Sumac, along with the opportunity to hear and learn more about the fascinating stories of these early Showwomxn pioneers. You can l
It’s a fun combination show, Séayoncé accompanied by Leslie Ann and their perfect comedic musical timing, is a tightly scripted, apparently random exercise in audience bonding and machine gunned gauche wit. Siblings is a throw-it-all-in and see chaotic blend of silliness with an abyssal dark underbelly where you can’t stop them going.
The Siblings scurrying around, like puppies on poppers, taking ages to leave the stage, calling Séayoncé ‘Daddy’ relentlessly, all delicious, Séayoncé wafting through the carnage of their carefully wrought act like a Drag Dido, more than holding their own, literally head and shoulders above this demonic dangerous due of delight. My favorite part of the show is where Siblings arrive dressed as Séayoncé each skewering Séayoncé routines with the rapier wit that Seyonce themselves is known for, seriously funny, meta monstering at its best. This trio in costumes present us with a triple Goddess of Séayoncé , each more bonkers than the last. Eventually order is recorded with a flash of crystal testicle, of course – it’s the Fringe after all,
House of Horror is fun, silly, night out of car crash comedy, bravely committed to fully by all four performers and giving each other space to shine while undercutting, undermining and verbally dynamiting each other at every opportunity. With a less accomplished confident crew, or a kinder one, this might have been messy, but with this undead crew of supernatural whip sharp wit sadists we got to see them murder, kidnap, and slaughter each other time and and time again on stage, in front of us, then rise again to dish out and take some more..
This show likely has more jokes that land, work, and make you laugh than half the rest of the Fringe combined. This is a master class in filthy innuendo and faux innocence. The audience absolutely adored it, rewarding the performance with a well-earned standing ovation, a moment of proud togetherness and queer joy. Dan and Robyn deserved every bit of their praise. Brighton Spiegeltent loved them.
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