Dusty at the boutique, our favourite trans prozzie, lesbians through history, a gay poem and a moment of mourning for the death of old Soho

[I'm not quite so old as to remember the pub like this]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Whatever happened to The Theatre Bar? Friendly, reasonably-priced, old-fashioned, comfortable - the only gay venue in London where you could hear the likes of Ethel Merman, Peggy Lee, Shirley Bassey, John Barrowman, Liza Minnelli, Bernadette Peters, Dorothy Squires and innumerable "songs from the shows" being played night after night? The place where we first met all those characters from the theatre world such as our favourite roller-skating drag queen Eb-on-knee; the artiste soon to be known as Mrs Moore; stage-hands and wig-makers; and even Graham Norton? The place where I won (singlehandedly) the pub music quiz? Whatever happened to our hosts Wezley (aka Cassidy Connors), or Rupert or Graeme? Or regulars Tom, Roddy and Marc? Long gone, I'm afraid. The Theatre Bar closed when its "mother-ship" downstairs the West Central pub (formerly the White Bear or Polar Bear, now known as Ku Bar) disappeared for a while and "went straight". More's the pity.

Why the reminiscing? Well, the new incarnation of what was formerly the West End's campest bar is called Light Lounge, and this was the chosen venue for "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari's much-vaunted "return to its Soho roots", that I managed (painfully) to stagger along to on Monday. As a location for such an event it is most definitely found wanting. Gone is any semblance of the illustrious revelry that marked out this most historic (and perhaps slightly seedy) of corners in Soho/Chinatown, in favour of shiny surfaces and (the nowadays ubiquitous) low banquette seating. Gone is any notion of an affordable night out, in favour of drinks at £9 a pop - cocktails are, no matter how "fancily" packaged, only tiny measures of booze, and don't last long; and the venue's cider (or beer) is served in miniscule bottles for the same price as a pint everywhere else in the real world, including the Ku Bar downstairs. Ambience? Clinical. Comfort? Negligible. Toilets? Incomprehensibly awkward [flush behind the seat? How very British Rail.] Value for money? Ludicrous.

Worst of all, many of the punters - some Polari regulars (including me, Paul, little Tony, Bryanne and Simon, as well as Anny, Jayne, Tanyth and chums), and some newbies - who were crammed into the confines of the seating area couldn't even see the evening's readers. Shame, because they were worth seeing (as well as listening to, of course). Still, the glittering environs made a great backdrop for the bods at cable channel London Live, who were there (along with free gay mag Boyz) to cover the evening...



Opening the show was a "safe pair of hands" for any Polari evening, in any venue - the utterly marvellous VG (Val) Lee. She read from her soon-to-be-published new novel Mr Oliver's Object of Desire, a funny and insightful exposé of the clashing values of a boutique owner with the rapidly-changing world of late 60s/early 70s London, as he finds himself disappointed that his chosen "celebrities" for his shop's grand opening the Beverley Sisters were substituted at the last moment by some "new whipper-snapper" of a singer (bewilderingly popular with "the girls", to his chagrin) Miss Dusty Springfield...

Concluding with a crowd-pleasing "Deirdre" story, Val had the audience suitably "warmed up". Here is the lady herself, in conversation with the London Live talking head, about Polari and the London Book & Screen Week, of which this evening was a part:

London Live - Polari - VG Lee

No sooner had VG finished, it was time for a break. This, we surmised, was to give sufficient time for people to empty their credit cards behind the bar, so we went for a fag out the back.



The lovely Alexis "Lexi" Gregory, Soho stalwart himself (we first met when he was "bar whore" at another deceased venue BarCode), read us his first performance piece Through the Wilderness, about a Madonna-obsessed, half-Italian, half-Greek gay kid growing up in the suburbs of 1980s North West London dreaming of becoming an actor. Unsurprisingly, he revealed, it is autobiographical.

He also treated us to an extract from his latest play, the utterly marvellous Slap (that John-John and I went to see in Stratford last year), which completely captivated the audience, needless to say!

Here's Lexi chatting about it on London Live:

London Live - Polari - Alexis Gregory

Another break. Another over-priced drink.



Our next reader Diana Souhami is a writer of prodigious talents - in addition to the lesbian biographies for which she is most famous, she curated an exhibition on women's rights for the British Council that travelled worldwide, she has also written about the real-life Robinson Crusoe, an obscure 1940s murder, the "Bounty" mutineers and Leon Bakst's panels on the fable of Sleeping Beauty that were commissioned by the Rothschilds. Whew.

However, for Monday's audience, it was lesbians all the way - as Ms Souhami took us on a tour through her various works about painter Hannah Gluckstein ("Gluck") and her aristocratic lovers (including famed floral artiste Constance Spry), Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Mrs Alice Keppel's daughter Violet Trefusis (lover of Vita Sackville-West) and the Sapphic world of inter-War Paris with Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney. This was an engrossing and entertaining journey, indeed - her wealth of research is impressive. Loved it.

Another break. Another fag.



Headlining this unusually disjointed Polari evening was the cute Keith Jarrett, poet and performance artist. Not to be outdone by Lexi's "autobiographical work", he gave us a selection of pieces about his own life and experiences being brought up as a budding gay boy in a God-fearing Jamaican community, culminating this one - A Gay Poem:

Keith Jarrett - A Gay Poem

He wowed the crowd, that's for certain.

And, of course, the last word goes to Mr Burston...

London Live - Polari - Paul Burston

Loved the speakers, love Polari. Thankfully the next one is back somewhere sensible - the South Bank - on 25th April (twice in a month? We are spoiled...) featuring Juno Dawson, Will Davis, Rachel B Glaser, Mark Lock, and the long-overdue return of our fave Rebecca Chance!

I can't wait!

Polari