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Day: August 10, 2018

Powerlifting returns to Gay Games

Posted on by Besi

Powerlifting returns to sports programme at the Hong Kong Gay Games in 2022.

Chris Morgan
Chris Morgan

THE LGBT Powerlifting Union has agreed to assist the organisers of Gay Games Hong Kong, 2022 in the delivery and promotion of their Powerlifting event in the next Gay Games cycle.

Powerlifting was not included in the sports schedule in Gay Games X, currently taking place in Paris, but the discipline has now been confirmed for the following Gay Games after discussions took place between the next host city Hong Kong and the LGBT Powerlifting Union, who have successfully run the LGBT International Powerlifting Championships (LGBT IPC) in both 2017 and 2018.

The Second annual LGBT International Powerlifting Championships were held in London from July 27-29, with participation numbers doubling, from the previous year.

Athletes attended from eight different nations including Australia, Belarus, Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, United States of America and of course the host nation Great Britain.

Within LGBT IPC athletes are welcome to participate regardless of their age, sexuality, health status, ability or gender. This year the LGBT IPC introduced a new Mx third gender category, to welcome transgender, non-binary and intersex participants to compete. The LGBT IPC are the first sporting event in the world to introduce a third gender category, so Mx people can participate in a safe environment, without fear of discrimination.

This year’s championships were attended by national champions, world champions, world record holders and also a lifter who had competed in the Arnold Classic Sports Festival in Australia.

The LGBT IPC competition is particularly friendly towards novices as they have their own category, for those who are competing for the first time. LGBT IPC is very committed towards reaching out to sections of the community that are under-represented in the sport.

Speaking about the confirmation of Powerlifting for the Gay Games in 2022, Chris Morgan, Gay Games Ambassador and Co-President of the LGBT Powerlifting Union said: “We are delighted with discussions that have taken place and the LGBT Powerlifting Union have agreed to assist the next Gay Games host city Hong Kong to deliver and promote their Powerlifting event. Of course we are disappointed not to have been able to participate in these Gay Games in Paris, but we are looking forward and growing stronger as a group each year ahead of the next Gay Games in Hong Kong”.

“Next year our own event ‘LGBT International Powerlifting Championships’ will be in Blackpool, the most LGBT and in particular Trans Friendly town in the UK. We have confirmed a fantastic new venue and have a fresh and exciting new programme of events and activities. Next year’s focus will be on development and outreach, with more detailed information about this released in the coming months”.

The choice of the seaside town of Blackpool as the host town gives organisers the opportunity to double the participation levels over the next two years as the town has an abundance of high quality, low cost accommodation.

Athletes from all over the world will find Blackpool a very affordable place to stay with easy access from Manchester International Airport which runs regular one hour fast trains straight into the Gay Village in the centre of Blackpool.

Blackpool 2019 will take place from July 19-21, 2019. The provisional programme currently includes Coaching Clinic, Technical Briefing, Competition, Social Evening, Congress, Outreach Workshop and Closing Party at the World Renowned Funny Girls Cabaret.

Blackpool 2019 will give the organisers the opportunity to increase participation numbers and provide a very safe host town environment for all Trans, Non Binary and Intersex participants.

In the build up to Blackpool 2019 the LGBT Powerlifting Union are planning Workshops in the North (Blackpool) and South (London). Details about these will follow soon.

There will also be more LGBT Powerlifting workshops and seminars planned in the USA. These will also be announced soon.

Within the Congress the LGBT Powerlifting Union received provisional bids and expressions of interest to host future LGBT IPC events from Atlanta, USA and Munich, Germany.

More information about these will follow soon.

For more details about the LGBT International Powerlifting Championships, click here:

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: The Half @The Pleasance

Posted on by Brian Butler

It’s 30 minutes to curtain up on a charity show at the London Palladium, and the long-separated female comedy duo Anderson and West meet for the first time in 10 years, we are led to believe.

AND OVER double the length of the Half – for the next 60 minutes – we laugh and squirm with embarrassment as they re-live their career highs and lows, incessantly bitching to score points at the other’s expense.

Margaret Cabourn-Smith enters in a wheelchair – she’s been getting into her part for 3  days – all for a 10 minute scene from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, which the duo are programmed to perform on the charity variety bill.

With more than a hint of the sharpness of French and Saunders about it, the play recounts their original meeting, their flat sharing and their eventual break-up with pace and pathos.

Anna Crilly as the other half of the duo is as piercingly bitter as her partner, but single mum Mel always seems the weaker link, gin-downing, pill popping neurotic, reduced to parts in Vanish carpet shampoo ads.

We learn she has nearly killed her son when she drunkenly sets fire to her flat, leaving him hiding in a wardrobe and sustaining 70 per cent burns.

Cath, her partner, on the other hand is a huge if rather tawdry sit com star in Los Angeles, and her affected poshness has more than a touch of Bird of Feather Doreen about her.

But it’s far more than an hour of bitchiness by two luvvies.

The script, by Danielle Ward, explores ageing, fame, sexual predation by male actors, and even the tragi-comic death of a mouse.

And the last 10 minutes, when we discover we haven’t been watching what we thought we’d been watching is brilliantly handled and leaves a lump in the throat as the curtain comes tragically down.

The Half, by Fabric Productions, runs throughout August at the Pleasance, Edinburgh.

Review by Brian Butler

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Bottom @Summerhall

Posted on by Brian Butler
Willy Hudson
Willy Hudson

Willy Hudson starts his show as he means to go on – hiding his inadequacies with a towel and sheepishly retrieving his dinosaur print underpants from under the seat of an audience member.

It’s a taste of joyous silly things to come – or in the aptly named Will’s case – things not to come.

This is a one-man Odyssey , complete with tiny guitar – another metaphor ? – into queer life at the coal-face of sexual encounters- and it’s very very funny.

As the title suggests, it’s about your position in life and in bed. And Beyoncé is a key influencer, especially her song Love on Top.

She’s a central character in this mash of stand-up, monologue and interchange with the audience.

Willy has a boyish silliness which is totally engaging and though he makes his own inadequacy the butt (get it ?) of many jokes, he overcomes it with a very insightful analysis of what makes a man a man.

It’s a comic look at topness and bottomless, as stereotypes, at first , second and third dates, at Tinder and Grindr.

And it’s about all the things men mean to say to each other when they are trying to start a relationship, and how they fail to do so. As Willy points out “we define our positions so we can play the game of sex” .

But Willy’s challenge to us is “why should we ?” In his journey of self-awareness, maybe he’ll become the person he really wants to be . We needn’t feel unloveable and unloved.

A great springboard for his next show? I hope so!

Bottom plays throughout August at Sumerhall, Edinburgh

Review by Brian Butler

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Alma, A Human Voice

Posted on by Brian Butler

An unnamed man walks on stage and unpacks from a suitcase women’s clothing and wigs.

Image: Valentina Bianchi
Image: Valentina Bianchi

IT’S the start of the creation of two very different women and a downbeat beginning to a visually stunning, if at times bewildering, hour of entertainment.

Performed by Lorenzo Piccolo, of Nina’s Drag Queens – a company based in Milan we learn the tragi-comic stories of the two women. The first, anonymous, behaves like an over-acting neurotic jilted lover – straight out of some Hollywood B movie, based on Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine.

The second and more interesting persona is Alma Mahler, widow to the famous composer, now bound manically to the artist Oscar Kokoschka, who when he can’t get enough of the real Alma, has a puppeteer and milliner make him a life-size doll of her.

It will all of course end in tears but what Lorenzo achieves brilliantly is an incisive exploration of what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man pretending to be a woman.

Alma is at once and examination of femininity and a funny, sad poetic depiction of drag queenery.

Through mime, lip sync and achingly beautiful movement, it’s a puzzling but stunning piece of theatre. Lorenzo creates moments of statuesque stillness which take your breath away .

Alma is at Summerhall, Edinburgh throughout August.

Review by Brian Butler

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