Lassi lesbians, sexy poets, gay Turks, sheep-shearing and a Halo

Once more, Mr Paul Burston and his "peerless gay literary salon" Polari came up trumps on Monday, with a fun-packed evening of intellectual stimulus second to none!



Opening the show Mr Hugh Mulhall, accompanied by an on-screen presentation from the world-class artist Maggi Hambling, spoke emotively of his support for the ongoing campaign to secure the commission of a permanent sculptural memorial to the gay manager of The Beatles, Brian Epstein. The planned monument, designed by Ms Hambling, would, he argued, make up for the complete omission of any mention of Mr Epstein's cultural legacy in the recent "Liverpool - City of Culture" celebrations, and in other tributes to the Fab Four. Passionately put, we wish the project well.

Moving swiftly on, and in complete contrast Miss Faarea Masud, broadcaster and writer, enthralled the audience with her hilarious descriptions of the South Asian lesbian world, reading from her as yet unpublished book Lassi Lesbians. Her accounts of the interplay between the girls of different cultures (and their various attitudes to sex and the topiary of the downstairs lady bits) were fabulous - can't wait to hear more!



Suddenly my attention perked up even more, as the stunning presence of model and poet Mr Max Wallis took to the podium, cheekbones to the fore... [And he's not a shy boy, I have discovered, having posed seductively across Coleridge's bed for a charity fundraising calendar!]



Edible.

He also happens to be a talented poet beyond his years, and he read a few of his charming works from his compilation Modern Love, including this particularly breathtaking one:

When A Thief Kisses You, Count Your Teeth
Take my coat and hang it by the door next to others.
Rip my shirt, button by popped button, tie it around your waist.
Pick up the little black things and put them in your pocket.
Undo my belt, wrench it until the loops split, curl it up.
Slide down skin-clung trousers. Fumble with my feet and socks.
Cut off my boxers. Naked, take in my scent and shy eyes.
With a razor shave my hair, brows, pubes; store them in a pillowcase.
Use your fingers to peel off the dead skin from my heels.
Tap my head three times to unlock my skull, open the cavity
Prise out my brain and let it dry on the windowsill.
Shed off my case and dump it shrivelled by your bed.
Wipe the blood from my musculature and smear it on your clothes.
Use spoons and knives and forks and dismember my limbs.
Put my toes and fingers in your dog’s bowl.
Crack open my ribs, suck the breath from my lungs.
Siphon the wine of me. Decant it with the rest.
Use my tendons as thread, my bones as knitting needles.
Gouge my eyes and add them to the necklace you wear.
Take it all. Everything. Now.
Bare, wordless, prop me up, a model skeleton for your museum.

Wow.



To break the mood nicely, it was the turn of Mr Jack Scott, who gave us a fabulous insight into the complications and intrigues that befell him and his boyfriend as they took the unusual decision to become ex-pats in Bodrum in Turkey - a contradictory cultural mix of tolerance and menace, bitching and back-biting, and very entertaining stuff! Mr Scott's blog - also the title of his book - Perking the Pansies is a cracking read, and it is from this point that the published work began.

"Just imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, recently married, middle-aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. The country in question is not Iran (we had no desire to be lynched from the nearest olive tree by the Revolutionary Guard) but neighbouring Turkey, a secular nation practising a moderate and state-supervised form of Islam. Even so, Turkey provides a challenge to the free-spirited wishing to live unconventionally. Openly gay Turks in visible same sex relationships are as rare as ginger imams."

Indeed.



After the break, Catherine Hall, recent winner of the Green Carnation Prize for gay literature, read a tantalising extract from her novel The Proof Of Love, featuring the interplay between a closeted intellectual who has arrived to work on a farm in Cumbria and the burly shirtless boy with whom he is learning the art of sheep-shearing (and, he hopes, more). Set in the long hot summer of 1976, this certainly was a bit steamy... Her writing is mesmerising, and from the sound of it a worthy prize-winner.

Here is Ms Hall reading another passage from the book:

Catherine Hall - The Proof of Love

And last, and most definitely not least, our headliner was the ebullient Miss Tiffany Murray, who we last saw at Polari back in June 2010.



As on that occasion, she treated us to some extracts from her hit novel Diamond Star Halo. Her semi-autobiographical stories of an upbringing in the midst of a wild recording studio in Wales, her eccentric dad, and the presence of an enticingly gorgeous half-brother were as enthralling now as they were when we first encountered them.

As the review on For Books' Sake website says:

For those desperate to crack Murray’s brain open and feast on her childhood memories of rock legends, Diamond Star Halo is the book you’ve been waiting for. The story is set in the fictional haven of Rockfarm, in the Welsh countryside.

It’s a picturesque family home that just happens to also be a recording studio for musicians from all over the World. Chickens peck at plectrums in the dust, and the sound of drum solos and playback wash over the rolling hills of brown-sugar cows and the family’s pet horses, Ziggy and Stardust.

This coming-of-age tale is narrated by Halo Llewellyn, so called because she learnt to walk to T-Rex’s Get It On. She is five-years-old when the story begins on a hot evening in 1977, while the family are waiting for the next band to arrive at Rockfarm.

The American eight-piece, Tequila, pull up the drive in a silver tour bus, and Halo is immediately taken with their lead singer, a heavily pregnant young woman called Jenny Connor, who wears cowboy boots under her dress and has a voice like "chewing dough and toffee at the same time". If Halo is in awe of Jenny, she is positively star-struck by her unborn baby, the boy that gives her a jolt of electricity every time she touches Jenny’s belly.

When Fred Connor is born, Halo knows right away that he is extraordinary, and when he is left to be raised by the Llewellyns on the farm, it is obvious to the whole family that the boy who is “half seal-pup half bloody Heathcliff” is destined for rock ‘n’ roll greatness.

Bloody marvellous...



Another great evening! Roll on next month, when we are joined by none other than the award-winning author Patrick Gale! Completing the line-up are our faves Sophia Blackwell and Nick Field, plus Will Davis, Deborah Levy and Justin Torres.

Polari at the Southbank Centre