"It's like a family reunion!" said Little Tony. "Only if this is 'Mommie Dearest'", said I.
As stalwarts of "London's peerless gay literary salon" [I have been attending for eleven years out of the esteemed event's twelve-year existence (this is my 96th blog post about the event!), and LaBrown for eight of them], Paul and I were on the guest list last night for Polari’s 12th birthday celebration - and I am so, so very pleased we were, for it was brilliant from beginning to end!
Hordes of the punters and participants from Polari's history were there, faces I recognised but could not name, plus the aforementioned Little Tony, Emma and Toby, Bryanne and Simon and Lesley, VG Lee, Keith Jarrett, Karen McLeod, Sexy Lexi and Mr B's hubbie Paolo, as well as a host of newcomers (presumably lured by our headline reader) - it was packed!
Paul B in October 2015
Speaking of beginnings, our esteemed "Mistress of Ceremonies" Paul Burston was simply bursting with pride on opening the evening, and with very good reason. Through thick and through thin, through changes of venue, through "unpleasant break-ups", through sniping and back-biting and high praise and accolades alike, his indomitable (Welsh!) doggedness has seen a Polari event of some kind appear somewhere in the UK around once a month since Leona-fucking-Lewis was at #1 in the charts! That's quite an achievement; many others have fallen at the hurdle of organising half a dozen events, yet Mr B has pulled out all the stops for a DOZEN YEARS. All hail!
Before his head gets too big, on with the show.
First up, Bridgend's finest introduced one of the most remarkable of characters, Amrou Al-Kadhi...
...by day. By night, I am Glamrou, an empowered, confident and acerbic drag queen who wears seven-inch heels and says the things that nobody else dares to.They [chosen adjective] were marvellous - from the opening gambit: "How proud I am to be appearing in this - erm - foyer!" to the readings from their book Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen, we were in fits of laughter!
Growing up in a strict Iraqi Muslim household, it didn’t take long for me to realise I was different. When I was ten years old, I announced to my family that I was in love with Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. The resultant fallout might best be described as something like the Iraqi version of Jeremy Kyle. And that was just the beginning.
This is the story of how I got from there to here. You’ll read about my teenage obsession with marine biology, and how fluid aquatic life helped me understand my non-binary gender identity. You’ll read about my scholarship at Eton college, during which I wondered if I could forge a new identity as a British aristocrat (spoiler alert: it didn’t work). You’ll read about how I discovered the transformative powers of drag while at Cambridge University; about how I suffered a massive breakdown after I left, and very nearly lost my mind; and about how, after years of rage towards it, I finally began to understand Islam in a new, queer way.
Most of all, this is a book about my mother, my first love, the most beautiful and glamorous woman I’ve ever known, the unknowing inspiration for my career as a drag queen – and a fierce, vociferous critic of anything that transgresses normal gender boundaries. It’s about how we lost and found each other, about forgiveness, understanding, hope – and the life-long search for belonging.
As a last-minute substitute for the scheduled guest Tamara McFarlane, who was unwell, the phenomenon that is P.J. Samuels was a splendid choice, and she rose to the occasion with aplomb. Reading from a selection of her poetry about life as a black lesbian in her inimitable fashion, we loved her. Fortuitously, someone captured her appearance at a previous Polari for the cameras, so there's no need for me to describe the sheer impact she made, dear reader - enjoy!
Concluding the impressive first-half line-up was Alison (Ali) Child, who, with her partner Rosie Wakley formed the performance act Behind The Lines [who we enjoyed at their appearance at Polari back in September 2015] to showcase forgotten lesbian characters from history. Among those characters were the Music Hall duo Gwen Farrar and Norah Blaney - who were wildly popular in their day, headlining at the Coliseum, the Palladium, the Alhambra and the Victoria Palace as well as music halls up and down the country.
So enthralling did she find their story that Alison has now written a book about their lives Tell Me I'm Forgiven, from which - accompanied by accomplished cellist Kate Shortt (Gwen Farrar played cello) - she read extracts, describing their meeting (and Gwen's musical seduction of Norah) on a train, how their paths crossed with such society lesbians of the 1930s as Tallulah Bankhead, and how they managed to sustain a more-or-less "out" lifestyle in what could be seen as a somewhat strait-laced era.
Faboo!
Time for a fag break and a top-up at the bar, and then... the main event!
What to say about the eminent Russell T Davies? The man behind the revival of Doctor Who for the 21st century, the creator of the most ground-breaking television series in recent history Queer As Folk, winner of five BAFTAS, Comedy Writer Of the Year 2001 - and OBE?! Just being in the same room was enough to make ya proud...
As a speaker, he is every bit as charming and funny as one might expect from his work; and he gave us a little potted overview of his life and career, before reading for the enraptured room the introductory passages from his recently-published novelisation of Rose - his first Doctor Who episode (2005), the first appearance of The Doctor on our screens in nine years, and the story that introduced Christopher Eccleston as our eponymous hero and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, destined to be an enduring companion in the coming decades.
He explained that he loved writing the novelisation, mainly because it provided him with a chance to flesh-out some of the back-story that could not have been captured by a telly series - not least the crooked caretaker of the Henrik's department store where all the action of that first episode unfolded. Bernie Wilson, he revealed, had gained the trust of fellow employees as the "custodian" of their weekly Lottery syndicate collection; giving him the responsibility to purchase all the tickets on their behalf. This was a very misguided level of trust, it turns out, as Bernie had, instead of purchasing anything for his esteemed colleagues at all, been pocketing the money in an elaborate scam, one which he thought he could forever get away with...
...And then Lydia Belmont won.With his lilting Swansea baritone, Mr Davies had the silent enraptured audience in the palm of his hand.
Lydia. Daft, dyed-blonde Lydia, a cook in Henrik's Third Floor Green Glade Cafe. She was in charge of the Catering syndicate and had used the same numbers for years, a combination of her house number and various birthdays, including Chris Rea's, the fourth of March.
She'd won on the Wednesday draw. But no-one had noticed. Everyone assumed Bernie would have told them if there was good news. But bad luck is ingenious; that Friday was Chris Rea's birthday, so Lydia had naturally turned to her Lottery numbers, and she'd dug yesterday's paper out of the bin the check the results...
Uproar in the Green Glade! Tears! Hugs! Envy! An impromptu little party was held in the food preparation area, to which Bernie was summoned. He was told that Lydia Belmont had won the rollover jackpot of £16.2 million.
"Amazing!" said Bernie. "Blimey! Wonderful!" And then, "Goodness me!" He added that hadn't got round to checking the ticket because there'd been that leak, in the basement, of oil, which was tricky, obviously, but never mind, her ticket was safe and sound, locked away, in his office, don't you worry. "Let's go and get it!" cried Lydia, but Bernie said no, it was actually inside the safe and that was the best place for it, because if she had it in her hand now, oh, she'd wave it about and rip it and get it wet and lose it, and anyway, he added, with a sudden burst of inspiration, the safe was on a timer and wouldn't open till 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, so that left her free to get drunk and be merry, and then on Saturday, at 8.01am precisely, he could hand over the ticket, perhaps in a little ceremony of sorts, and then Lydia's new life could begin, how did that sound?
A string of lies, to buy Bernie Wilson one more day. And he would use that day well.
He'd burn down the shop.
Friday night. Bernie was alone. He knew what to do. Like any British employee, he had spent many hours trying to work out how to raze his workplace to the ground.
First, he had to get his story right, and one thing kept bugging him. Would a ticket inside a safe survive a fire? Would the metal melt? If not, would the temperature inside become high enough to ignite paper? Or merely bake it? And what did baked paper look like, would the numbers still be legible? Hmm. Interesting. Okay, he'd have to burn some papers and place the ashes inside the safe, and then lock it, so that, if the safe survived, it would look as though the lottery ticket had disintegrated. That worked, didn't it? Yes, thought Bernie, he was getting good at this! ...
...Then he heard a creak.
He looked around.
No-one.
Only a wall of half-dressed shop-window dummies, staring at him with blank eyes.
So Bernie turned back to the fuse box. He prised open the grey metal covering. And then his entire life changed, shortly before its end.
The inside of the box was... alive.
The fuses couldn't be seen, buried beneath... fingers. A thousand long, thin, writhing, pink fingers. They swayed and poked the air as if someone had spread a sea anemone across the box with a knife. He realised they were growing somehow, visibly thickening as they began to spill over the edge of the metal. Bernie reached out to poke the centre of the mass...
And then he knew something was very wrong, because he had never felt anything like it before. The squirming mass felt hot and cold, dry and wet, smooth and spiky, fleshy, and yet sort of... plastic.
It felt like nothing from this world.
He pulled his hand back in shock, and his mind was thundering now, taking in many things at once. The feel of that thing on his fingers. The slurp of the tendrils as they surged out of their nest. That he'd never sent that letter to Erica Forsyth, the one in his bedroom drawer, written and hidden 20 long years ago. And that someone was now standing behind him, too close.
He turned around to see some bloke dressed as a shop-window dummy, with a plastic mask over his face, wearing 501s and a bright yellow t-shirt. he was raising his hand up above Bernie, his palm flexed wide open as though preparing for a karate chop.
Nothing in that moment made sense. The fuse box. The fingers. The dummy. He saw that our stories are only part of bigger stories, and that the stories around us a are so vast, we will never know our place in them, or how they end.
Then the arm swung down.
A good grounding, therefore, for a relaxed (the two know each other) "in-conversation/Q&A" session with Paul Burston, which went further into the great man's background, his joy at writing, his sad loss of his husband, his pride at the retrospective accolades his (then-controversial) Queer As Folk has received, and his continued determination to promote and publicise gay themes and gay lives through dramas such as his recent Cucumber, Tofu and Banana.
Wow. I honestly felt this was one of the very best Polari evenings in a while. They're always good, of course, but this one felt cohesive and complete. Paul B agreed, but has high hopes for the Xmas outing, too - as well as a return visit to Heaven nightclub in the Spring.
So, with the final curtain call and a lot of schmoozing it was time to depart, spirits well-and-truly lifted.
Our next outing will be A Very Polari Xmas on 9th December, featuring Lisa Jewell, Will Brooker (Why Bowie Matters ), Ben Fergusson and Carolyn Robertson.
Can't wait!
We love Polari.
Fab review of the night - I have shared it on F***book x
ReplyDeleteMerci! See you at the Xmas one?
DeleteJx