In 2015 Seann Miley Moore moved from Australia to London, in order to take part in The X Factor UK. He walked onstage for his first audition in a backwards cap, latex skirt, lippy, heels and hoop earrings before launching into a rendition of Queen’s ‘The Show Must Go On’ which brought the audience to its feet. He […]
Policing, Safe Spaces and this Challenging World
Dr Clifford Williams joined the “extremely homophobic” police force in 1987. He recalls his training, which saw the Sexual Offences Act regarding homosexual activity taught via the mnemonic ‘POOF’s Charter’. For such activity to be lawful it had to be in private (P), practiced by those over 21 (O), and involving only two people (O) […]
A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe
Written by Dominic Montague and directed by Paula McFetridge, A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe is an exciting new production from Kabosh that explores the events of the first National Union of Students Lesbian and Gay Conference, Queen’s University Belfast 1983. One year after the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland, and two […]
Matt Cain: Pop, Persecution and Politics
In a week that also saw him meet Michelle Visage after watching her as Miss Hedge in the wonderful musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the LGBT History Month patron, journalist, novelist and former editor-in-chief of Attitude takes time to chat with Sam Bennett Firstly, very importantly, you just met Michelle Visage. [Laughs] Brilliant, I […]
Our Hidden Histories
2015 marked the tenth anniversary of LGBT History Month in the UK. Playwright in residence for LGBT HM, Stephen M Hornby, explains how in the years following its 2005 introduction, the initiative “bubbled along nicely as a sort of grassroots happening.” The charity spearheading things, Schools OUT, would “set a theme, tie it in with […]
A Homotopian Rent Party
Sam Bennett During the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, poor African Americans – paid low wages yet asked for disproportionately high rent – would host house parties and collect money from guests in order to keep a roof over their heads. These bashes, which have inspired the Darren Pritchard-directed Rent Party, would see the likes of jazz […]
“It’s not Black and White”
No Offence is a British Museum partnership touring exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act (1967) which partially decriminalised male homosexuality in England and Wales. First shown in 2017, and developed in consultation with community partners, the exhibition is on display at the Ashmolean until early December. It is inspired by A […]