05/12/2015 – Scene Magazine – From the heart of LGBTQ+ Life

REVIEW: Bridge of Spies CD + DVD Box Set

Posted on 05/12/2015 by Craig Hanlon-Smith

Bridge of Spies. So much more than a Tom Hanks movie.

T’Pau – Bridge of Spies CD + DVD Box Set

Carol Decker and T’pau have been experiencing something of a renaissance in recent years following the success of their 25th anniversary tour and new album Pleasure and Pain released earlier this year.

This multi-disc re-mastered release of their multi-platinum selling debut outing can only ensure that they remain in our conscience for a little whole longer yet. Including the original album in full, all the big hitters are here, most notably China in Your Hand, Heart and Soul, and Valentine, but also the often radio neglected but equally magnificent I Will Be With You and the studio version of Sex Talk a live recording of which just missed the top 20 in spring 1988.

For those of you who remember the original, the re-mastered release pulls out a few surprise trills and tricks which may have escaped you almost thirty years ago, and if you’re new to the album it doesn’t disappoint with the title track and Thank You For Goodbye surely contenders at the time for single releases themselves.

As with most deluxe packages there are remixes and 12” versions a plenty, along with a rack of non-album tracks previously unreleased on any album format, the best of which Giving My Love Away, could easily have sat amongst the original album set. All the videos for the singles are included, remastered and digitised, as is their Hammersmith Odeon gig from the massively successful 1/5th Tour now available on DVD for the first time.

Buy it for your loved one, your adopted teenager or just yourself. All beautifully presented in a hard-back book style cover, you’ll love it. Here’s hoping Rage and The Promise will get the same treatment.

Carol Decker and T’Pau tour the UK as part of their acoustic Songs & Stories Tour from January 30 through to April 23. They play Shoreham Rope Tackle Arts Centre on February 6 and The Royal Vauxhall Tavern on April 14.

For more information, click here:

REVIEW: Madonna: The Rebel Heart Tour

Posted on 05/12/201506/12/2015 by Craig Hanlon-Smith

Don’t It Taste Like Holy Water

Madonna: The Rebel Heart Tour. December 2nd 2015

“Bitches are you in my gang?” yells Madonna to a capacity crowd at London’s O2 arena and 20,000 forty something homosexuals scream in hysterical response and possibly regret not remembering their incontinence pants.

Whilst I have seen Madonna put on a show before, The Rebel Heart Tour has to be up there amongst her finest onstage outings. Although not amongst her most commercially successful, the Rebel Heart album is a cracker and of the opening seven songs, six are taken from her latest release.

Live, they’re even more energetic than the recordings; from the gratuitously theatrical staging of set opener Iconic to the Last Supper style staging of Holy Water and Devil Pray, Madonna never falters neither physically nor vocally and for almost two and a half hours, the 20,000 strong faithful are eating out of the palm of her hand.

There may be a few more quieter moments than on previous tours but rather than rest points for an aging superstar, these are opportunities for more reflective acoustic versions of all but forgotten gems which on Wednesday included True Blue and Who’s That Girl.

For a woman who has hundreds of hits to choose from there are bound to be personal favourites dropped from the possibles but Madonna and her creative team threw everything at the spectacular production from Deeper and Deeper to Holiday via a ukulele accompanied La Vie en Rose sung entirely in French.

Her audience chats were plentiful and warm and she even threw in an unexpected Drowned World – Substitute For Love, previously not included on the tour, and dedicated to the memory of her interior designer friend David Collins.

Whilst the O2 may this year alone have hosted GaGa, Kylie, Taylor Swift and Katie Perry to name a handful of Madgesty chasers, tonight Madonna showed us all why “Bitch, I’m Madonna”.

Madonna returns to the U.K from mainland Europe to play Birmingham, December 14, Manchester 16, Glasgow 20. The Rebel Heart Tour plays until March 2016.

For more information, click here:

PREVIEW: You can hear the Rainbows sing tonight!

Posted on 05/12/201505/12/2015 by Contributor

The Rainbow Chorus continues to celebrate 18 glorious years of harmony with a concert in Kemptown tonight.

The Rainbows will throw open the doors of St. George’s Church, Kemptown tonight for a show stopping festive Christmas concert Can you hear the Rainbows sing?, featuring songs from their Christmas repertoire over the last 18 years and a new tribute medley from one of the most successful musicals of all time, Les Miserables.

The Rainbow Chorus is the only Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) choir in the South outside of London and aims to provide an enjoyable and supportive environment for LGBT members to sing together, making new friends, developing their community spirit, individual talents and confidence.

Through performance, the Rainbow Chorus also raises the profile of the LGBT community in Brighton & Hove as well as providing top quality entertainment.

The Rainbow Chorus is supported by the Big Lottery and the Rainbow Fund.

Event: Can you hear the Rainbows sing?

Where: St Georges Church, St George Road, Kemptown, Brighton

When: Saturday, December 5

Time: 7.30pm

Tickets: £14 / £10 concs / £7 children under 12

To book tickets online, click here:

Or contact choir members. They’re aiming for a sell out so book early to avoid disappointment.

No one need to feel alone this Christmas, say Samaritans

Posted on 05/12/201505/12/2015 by Gary Hart

As the UK gears up once more for the festive season, Samaritans remind people that no one needs to feel alone this Christmas.

If you’re struggling to cope with life, the pressure to have a good time can magnify your challenges and increase your sense of isolation, even with friends and family around you.

Samaritan volunteers in Brighton, Hove and District branch will be there round the clock for anyone who feels they need to talk, in confidence, about whatever’s getting to them – on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, and every other day of the year.

Samaritans’ branch Director, Daniel Cheesman, says: “Someone contacts Samaritans every six seconds. Problems don’t go away just because it’s Christmas, so if you’re finding it hard to look forward to the festive season, we’re here for you. If it’s too difficult to open up to friends or family, or you feel you have no one who will listen, talk to us. We’ll keep whatever you say safe, we won’t judge and we’ll help you find a way through.”

Helen, aged 31, is a Samaritans volunteer in Brighton Hove and District branch, and has answered hundreds of calls for help from people finding Christmas and New Year an ordeal.

She says: “It may be your first Christmas without your children because of a separation. Or you may be bereaved, or struggling with redundancy, debt, your health, relationships or family issues. It’s OK to not be having a good time, and you don’t have to put on a brave face for us. You can talk to us, by phone, email or face to face in our branch. However difficult your thoughts and feelings are, knowing that we care and that we will listen can make all the difference.”

Last year Samaritans responded to more than 5.3 million calls for help from people struggling to cope, with nearly 200,000* contacts to the charity over the festive season alone.

Samaritans relies almost entirely on donations to run its 201 branches and train its 21,200 volunteers, who also provide emotional support in schools, prisons, workplaces, and throughout their local communities.

To support Samaritans with a donation, click here:

To find out more about Samaritans in Brighton Hove and District branch or to talk to local volunteers about their services over Christmas, telephone: 01273 772277.

Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place to talk for anyone who is struggling to cope, whoever you are and whatever life has done to you.

Telephone 116 123 (this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill), or 01273 772277 (local call charges apply), email jo@samaritans.org.

To find the nearest branch, click here:

LGBT History Project re-launched as the UK LGBT Archive

Posted on 05/12/2015 by Gary Hart

The LGBT History Project, set up to create a Wikipedia-style resource for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) life in the UK, is being relaunched today, on the occasion of the London Metropolitan Archive’s 13th annual LGBT Conference, “Speak Up! Speak Out!”

The project will now be called the UK LGBT Archive – www.lgbtarchive.uk.

Since it was launched in June 2011, the Project has grown to include over 3,600 articles, which have been viewed over five million times and is a Key Partner of LGBT History Month UK. The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) has voted to work for its long-term survival and enhancement.

The new name emphasises the purpose of the site, to be a virtual time capsule of information about LGBT people, places, organisation and events.

A key aim is to document the sources of all information, and in the case of facts obtained from external web pages to ensure that these too are archived, for the benefit of future historians and researchers.

Jonathan Harbourne, founder of the Project, said: “I created this site when I realised how little today’s younger LGBT people knew about the struggle that won us our equalities and our freedoms, and I’m delighted to see the success that it has achieved since then. We’re about to upgrade both the hardware and software that it runs on, so that it can cope with future demands.”

The historian Jeff Evans, representing Schools Out/ LGBT History Month, said: “The remarkable work of the LGBT Archive, in collecting and preserving the evidence of past events and attitudes, is both urgent and necessary: in the absence of such a body of material it’s all too easy for those with a political agenda to invent their own distorted version of the past. The work of the LGBT Archive increases the chance of future generations obtaining a more robust and inclusive reading of this remarkable aspect of British history.”

Ross Burgess, one of the Project’s volunteer editors, added: “We’ve been working with LGBT History Month since the early days of the project, and we’ve recently added a new Timeline on the 2016 History Month theme of Religion Belief and Philosophy.”

Call us now

Day: December 5, 2015

REVIEW: Bridge of Spies CD + DVD Box Set

Bridge of Spies. So much more than a Tom Hanks movie.

REVIEW: Madonna: The Rebel Heart Tour

Don’t It Taste Like Holy Water

PREVIEW: You can hear the Rainbows sing tonight!

The Rainbow Chorus continues to celebrate 18 glorious years of harmony with a concert in Kemptown tonight.

No one need to feel alone this Christmas, say Samaritans

As the UK gears up once more for the festive season, Samaritans remind people that no one needs to feel alone this Christmas.

LGBT History Project re-launched as the UK LGBT Archive

The LGBT History Project, set up to create a Wikipedia-style resource for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) life in the UK, is being relaunched today, on the occasion of the London Metropolitan Archive’s 13th annual LGBT Conference, “Speak Up! Speak Out!”

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Call us now

Bridge of Spies. So much more than a Tom Hanks movie.

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Don’t It Taste Like Holy Water

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The Rainbow Chorus continues to celebrate 18 glorious years of harmony with a concert in Kemptown tonight.

Share this:

As the UK gears up once more for the festive season, Samaritans remind people that no one needs to feel alone this Christmas.

Share this:

The LGBT History Project, set up to create a Wikipedia-style resource for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) life in the UK, is being relaunched today, on the occasion of the London Metropolitan Archive’s 13th annual LGBT Conference, “Speak Up! Speak Out!”

Share this:

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