LGBT+
Adam Sweeting
The L Word originally ran for six seasons between 2004 and 2009, and its then-revolutionary depiction of the lives of a group of lesbians in Los Angeles won it both a fanatical audience and acclaim for its game-changing content, exploring such topics as same-sex marriage, gay adoption and female sexuality which weren't being seen elsewhere on TV. But more than a decade later, how will this revamped version (on Sky Atlantic) fare?Whereas the prototype landed in a TV environment where viewers needed extra-sensory perception to detect a lesbian (let alone trans) character, that now feels like Read more ...
Daniel Lewis
Conjuring up nostalgia for a past readers never had is, perhaps, the litmus test for any good coming-of-age story. Writers have the hard task of making the general particular – because growing up, in one way or another, is universal whereas how and when and where we do is not. They also have the equally, if not harder, task of making the particular general – blurring that focus enough for the rest of us to share in their vision. A bit like using a state-of-the-art camera to take an early photograph; a twenty-first century Stieglitz.For his debut novel Swimming in the Dark, Tomasz Jedrowski Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The Cakemaker is Ofir Raul Graizer’s debut feature, and the film must somehow reflect the parabola of the Israeli-born director's life: it’s set between Berlin and Jerusalem, the two cities apparently closest to him, and one of its main subjects – alongside weightier themes such as grief and loss – is food, especially the rich experience of cooking. (Graizer’s biography records how he studied film, as well as – a phrase you don't expect to find in such contexts – “trained in kitchens as a cook and will soon publish his own Middle Eastern cookbook”.) The result is independent cinema at Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
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 hitting at the heart of the city’s gay community, such early attempts were tentative, the boundaries between personal and political still rough. Strictly, theatre came first, with Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart premiering in 1985.Dating from the same year, Arthur J Bressan Jr’s Buddies was certainly the screen pioneer, a piece of urgently made Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
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 London dates as the prism through which to view the Hollywood star at the end of her life, focusing on both the triumphs and the damage wrought by her celebrity rollercoaster career. The soundtrack, on the other hand, doesn't often intimate those highs and lows so much as capture her hyper-jolly, go-get-‘em film persona.Zellweger inhabits the vocal role Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
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 “Wrecking Ball”, thus Lo’s overt displays of sexual bravado seemed part of the same and she had big hits with songs such as “Habits (Stay High)” and “Talking Body”. Her output since, however, has proved her sensual agenda to be more than a passing foible.The bisexual Lo has pushed for a more emancipated Scandinavian attitude to sex. Her last Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
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 London in 1985 with Antony Sher. Fierstein revised the piece two years ago for a new production that itself returned to Broadway – to the same theatre, in fact, where it had played for three years on its first appearance, garnering Fierstein Tony Awards in 1983 for Best New Play and Best Actor – retuning the title and taking it down from a Read more ...
Owen Richards
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 underdog story, the layered characters and unflinching topics make the Shrimps a surprise package.After making homophobic remarks to a gay reporter, the national swimming team is making an example of Matthias Le Goff. If he wants to go to the World Championships, he must pay penance by coaching a gay sporting team. His chosen charges are the titular Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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 as Winsome Pinnock's Leave Taking and Caryl Phillips's Strange Fruit. Now it is the turn of Scottish poet, novelist and playwright Jackie Kay, with this revival of her 1986 play, Chiaroscuro, presented this time in the exciting form of gig theatre.It's a story about female friendship: although one of its central aims is to question simple Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
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 and in the operatic genre. Presented by Arcola Participation’s Queer Collective - a performance collective for LGBTQI+ people run as a strand of Arcola’s youth and community work - Don Jo aims to give a voice to those whose stories are often underrepresented on the stage.The piece illuminates many pertinent issues. Consent, power dynamics, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
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 2016 for an acclaimed revival. Yet the UK hasn’t sighted this landmark piece until now, with Tara Overfield-Wilkinson directing and choreographing an engaging if somewhat chaotic production.Daniel Boys plays Marvin, who recently left wife Trina (Laura Pitt-Pulford) for lover Whizzer (Oliver Savile, pictured below) – while maintaining close ties for Read more ...
Veronica Lee
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 doesn’t automatically follow in the wake of woke-bloke comics on the circuit. Actually his views are well informed and well within the limits of reasonableness – but, just as he predicted, there were one or two that drew groans or an intake of breath from the audience. But when they are expressed with a large dose of Yorkshire charm and Read more ...