Call us now

Day: May 28, 2018

PREVIEW: Pink Singers’ celebrates 35 years by creating a Mixtape with a track for everyone

Posted on by Contributor

London’s magnificent and quintessentially fabulous LGBT+ choir, The Pink Singers, celebrate 35 years of making music together with some of their favourite songs selected by choir members.

PINK Singers are Europe’s longest established LGBT+ choir, bringing people together through the unique power of song. Since 1983 they have been at the forefront of the LGBT+ communities in London and have taken their message of harmony, diversity and fun across the UK, Europe, Asia and North America.

There have been so many Pinkie fairy dust moments: singing at St Pancras Church in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting; marching in the first Maltese Pride March in Valletta; numerous Prides in Trafalgar Square; standing by Mumbai’s first LGBT+ choir, to name just a few.

Over 80 singers are now heading east to the People’s Palace on the Mile End Road for a special concert of their favourite music: songs from Adele, the Carpenters, Elgar, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Cole Porter, and many others. So go along and celebrate their 35th birthday!

It’ll be a night to remember, featuring special guests from Exeter – Spectrum Choir! Devon’s first and only LGBT+ choir.

This concert will be BSL interpreted. Group discounts are available. Call the Box Office on 01206 573948 to book wheelchair spaces.

Event: Pink Singers’ MIXTAPE

Where: The People’s Palace, Queen Mary University of London, E1 4NS.

When: Saturday June 16, 2018

Time: 7.30pm

Cost: Tickets, £16, £21, £26 & £31

To book tickets online, click here:

Fringe REVIEW: Mad about the boy @The Rialto Theatre

Posted on by Brian Butler

You have to feel sorry for hunky ex baseball player turned mediocre actor Bill Traylor. His desire to be a Broadway star leads him to be trapped in a bad romance, as Lady Gaga would have put it.

NOT only is he entrapped and preyed upon by the most famous actor/playwright of his time Noel Coward, but he can only see suicide as a way out of his predicament.

This pretty heavy stuff is lightened in local writer Edwin Preece’s stage show by the marvellous lines, some lifted from the Master and some written in his style. Never since Oscar Wilde and Cole Porter was gayness so subtly and discreetly described at a time when imprisonment was likely for practising the love that dare not speak its name.

Jeremy Crow has the look and mannerisms of Coward, but for me his voice wasn’t posh enough giving us too many Northern sounding hard vowels. But that aside, he is the epitome of charm and elegance mixed with waspish petulant manipulation.

I imagine 10 minutes in Noel’s company would make him the master and you the incoherent slave and so here the bumbling well-intentioned Bill doesn’t have a chance and is caught in the older man’s embrace – quite literally.

The play is interspersed with snatches of some of Coward’s best and plaintive love songs, with their obvious double meanings, but we don’t get enough of them and Fernando Pucci the singer is mostly hidden from view.

Warren Saunders gives a quite heart-breaking performance as the reluctant lover in this largely true story set in 1958 New York, where both are appearing in Coward’s far from first-rate play Nude with a Violin.

And there are some marvellous Coward lines as well as ones invented by Preece. “I don’t like men with short legs; their brains are too near their bottoms,” quips Noel to the long-legged Bill.

The most poignant scene is a split-location one where Noel is phoning a friend to say he has found the love of his life, while Bill on the other side of the stage breaks down to a girlfriend who Noel has banished and contemplates suicide – which he indeed attempts in the next scene.

In our days of liberation and free will, it’s probably difficult for younger audience members to appreciate how people got trapped in unhappy relationships and how difficult it was to say no to  an older predator – especially one as rich and famous as Coward.

Put more of Coward’s songs in this piece and it could well be a full-length show of some power.

Mad About the Boy is on again at the Rialto Theatre  on Sunday, June 3 at 3.30pm.

For more information, click here:

Review by Brian Butler

Fringe REVIEW: The Morning After The Life Before @Marlborough Theatre

Posted on by Brian Butler

It’s timely that this play about the successful marriage equality referendum in Ireland is being aired in Brighton just at the time of another monumental referendum – on abortion laws – has been an overwhelming success in the Republic.

THIS award-winning play stars its writer Ann Blake in a bitter-sweet largely autobiographical look at her life before and during the referendum.

Initially convinced she is straight, she eventually discovers the love of her life Jenny and the show punctuated with very funny songs  tells the ups and downs of their relationship, the ignorance and hurt which others – including your closest relatives can cause.

But ultimately it’s a celebration of being different – of as Ann puts it: “becoming a minority overnight”. She is counterbalanced in this uplifting hour by Lucia Smyth, who plays a wide variety of characters from Jenny to Ann’s mother and father, her counsellor and a very homophobic registrar.

Ann readily tells us that she never had the problems other gay people have – no double life, no sense of guilt, no bullying, she does exhibit a widely known phenomenon – internalised homophobia – which leads to tensions in her relationship with Jenny.

From her opening song which tries to analyse hetero relationships – “A woman draws her life from man and gives it back again,” Ann paints a picture of an Ireland dominated by the Catholic church and its strictures and the dilemma this causes for LGBT+ children of devout parents.

But LGBT+ politics aside, this is first and foremost a love story  – Jenny makes her feel more love than she thought possible, and she clearly reciprocates.

When Jenny becomes an activist for marriage equality, Ann’s response is not to knock on doors but to write a play – the precursor of this show.

What works so well in this production by Paul Meade is that Ann manages to come in and out of the story, talking directly to us and being nudged back on script by Lucia in clever by-play between them.

And in the long-run it is her own life story – she tells us at the end that having delayed marriage after the referendum decision, she and Jenny will marry for real next month.

Perhaps her next play will be the ups and downs of married life. I look forward to it.

The Morning after the life before is at the Marlborough Theatre tonight May 27 and Monday May 28 at 7.30pm

Review by Brian Butler

For more information, click here: 

Thank you for listening….

Posted on by Besi

After 33 years of dedicated service, Switchboard’s longest serving volunteer hangs up her telephone headset.

JENNY Bennett, Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard’s longest serving volunteer has called time on her listening career this month as she moves onto pastures new up North.

To thank Jenny for the huge contribution that she has made over the years, Switchboard threw Jenny a leaving party at the Bedford Tavern last month.

Joined by Switchboard team members old and new Jenny reflected on her time with the charity.  “When I joined, you could only tell a close friend where the Switchboard office was and you could only join by being recommended by a friend.  I felt it was like being part of a secret society with all the secrecy!”

When asked what she has most enjoyed about her time with Switchboard Jenny, said: “The highlight for me was being one of the four Pride Ambassadors in 2014, it was a real honour”.  She went onto say what she would miss most about volunteering with Switchboard, “I will miss supporting the callers of course, as well as working with the other Switchboard volunteers, and I will miss the routine of going into the office for a shift”.

Thanking Jenny for her service, Switchboard’s Chair of Trustees Dawn Draper, said: “We thank Jenny for all of her enthusiasm, contribution and support to Switchboard; we have all really appreciated the time and commitment she has given over many years to our staff, volunteers and those in the LGBT+ community who have used our helpline”.

Presenting Jenny with a leaving certificate and gift Switchboard’s CEO Daniel Cheesman, said: “We talk a lot nowadays about LGBT+ icons – we often look in the media and to celebrity for them, when they are normally much closer to home.  Over the years Jenny has become a local icon, for her dedication to LGBT+ people in her community and to those she has supported at Switchboard.  We thank Jenny on behalf of the hundreds of callers she has supported over the last 33 years and hope she enjoys her well earnt retirement”.

Taking the opportunity to encourage others to consider volunteering for Switchboard Jenny had this to say: “In this mixed up world we live in, by giving a little of yourself, your time and a listening ear, you would be helping another LGBTQ person to unburden their soul as they talk through what might be troubling them.”

To consider volunteering with Switchboard and training as a listening volunteer, click here:

 

Latest News

Community News Making Brighton ‘POP!’: local artist Dave Pop! and city centre businesses team up to dress city centre for the summer
Community News Legends and Two Brewers launch fundraisers ahead of events in Brighton and London to celebrate the life of Miss Jason
Community News Robbie Currie announced as new CEO of National AIDS Trust, taking over from Deborah Gold
Pride UK Black Pride to return on Sunday, August 11
X