England’s Stately Homo

"Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave."

"An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing."
Quentin Crisp

We paid fitting homage last night to the most influential camp gay man of the 20th century Quentin Crisp, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. Organised once more with great chutzpah by Rupert Smith and Paul Burston aka The House of Homosexual Culture at the South Bank, this gala was a real treat!

Opening with the enigmatic La John-Joseph who unexpectedly performed a striptease, removing a tweedy conservative suit to reveal another, more characteristically Quentin-esque blue outfit and chiffon scarf, we knew we were in for an eclectic night.

"I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum."
Quentin Crisp

Our invited panel of guests all spoke from a slightly different perspective about their friendship with Mr Crisp (he always referred to people with the formal "Mr", including "Mr Christ" and even "Mr The Ripper"). We heard from his boigraphers Paul Bailey and Andrew Barrow, the "living embodiment of Quentin on Earth" Bette Bourne and, with a moving compilation film of home movies and first hand accounts from his family, the great man's great nephew Adrian Goycoolea.

Apart from the ever fabulous Bette's extract from his one-man show Resident Alien (showing again in the new year at the New End Theatre apparently!), the real highlight for us was an exclusive preview of some scenes from the forthcoming ITV drama An Englishman in New York, a sequel to the classic 1975 ITV drama The Naked Civil Servant and once more starring John Hurt as Quentin.



"If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style."
Quentin Crisp

In a typically bizarre closing piece, David Hoyle loudly proclaimed his feelings about Mr Crisp's influence on his own life, and on ours, in his own inimitable way - it is a lttle known fact that the artist formerly kinown as The Divine David was one of only a handful of people who went to the cremation ceremony after Quentin's sudden death while on tour in Manchester.



"Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are."
Quentin Crisp

The finale was the much-vaunted Quentin Crisp look-alike contest. Although Paul did ask if I would join the line-up on stage, I felt that merely wearing a pink fedora might not stand up to the competition, and the winner among the strange beauty pageant was some pretty chicken (unusually dressed more like Mary Tyler-Moore for some reason) - understandably a far more likely candidate for the top prize of being photographed for the cover of QX magazine...



A truly grand piece of entertainment all in all, and one I wouldn't have missed for the world!