All just a little bit of history...

It may be St Valentine's St Hallmark's Day today [I steadfastly ignore that cynically commercialised rubbish], but it is also LGBT+ History Month here in the UK, and, as ever, Camden and Islington LGBT Forum (nowadays calling itself "Forum+") has put together a wide-ranging itinerary of events...

We've already missed some interesting (and bizarre) things while we were in Spain - wouldya believe someone actually produced a show called Alan Turing The Musical?! - such as several gay history walking trails, a talk at the British Library intriguingly called The Further Queer Adventures of Alexander the Great: Boyfriend, Activist and Porn Star, and some special themed nights at gay venues Central Station at King's Cross and Zodiac in Camden.

Coming up are a talk about the closeted gay American poet Walt Whitman [never liked his work, so won't be going to that], a weird-sounding "narrative cabaret" work called Wild Onion [that doesn't appeal, either, tbh], more walking trails, a tour of the new Queer Britain Museum behind St Pancras station [which we've not visited since it opened last year, but will one day], a creative writing workshop, an event at the British Library focusing on the BBC documentary The Story of Aids: the Unheard Tapes [which sounds a bit depressing], a discussion of a "forgotten queer classic" historical novel about the fascinating "Ladies of Llangollen" [online-only, more's the pity, and as I spend my life at work on Teams meetings I shan't be rushing to sit at home and watch that] and the annual LGBTQ+ Film Day at The British Museum which features Derek Jarman's The Tempest [unfortunately it clashes with our gang's get-together for a late celebration of The Madam's birthday].

Here in Haringey, things a little more "low-key". There are, however, some events [that we will surely miss] such as poetry readings, a screening of Call Me By Your Name at a library in Crouch End, and what might have been the most interesting, a discussion on curating LGBT+ oral and film histories at the Bruce Castle Museum, a place I have never visited, despite the fact it's only a short bus ride from Wood Green [but that, too, is on the same day as the "gathering of the clans"].

Here at Dolores Delargo Towers, of course, I/we have always been fascinated by LGBT history, so much so that I "curate" my very own "Museum of Camp", which has, over the years featured many and varied stories of the people and events that shaped our narrative - not least today's "exhibit" Richard "Dickie" Colley!

Here's something appropriate for today - that true pioneer of gay cabaret, the peerless Douglas Byng, in 1932

Douglas Byng and Roy Fox & His Band (with Al Bowlly on guitar)

Sublime.

Oh, those nights in the oasis, when I toyed with Pharaoh's braces

Taking the Pith

Hils, The History Boy, Madam Arcati and I dusted off our amulets and trolled along to London's best "hidden secret", The Petrie Museum of Egyptology, on Friday to join students and Steampunks alike at an event lavishly titled Worlds Collide: Fin de Siècle Fantasy Egypt.



It was advertised thus:

Jump from the 21st century back over 100 years, then back to Ancient Egypt and forward again. A Friday night mini-festival with a range of activities from talks to fortune telling to making 3-D postcards from 1890s Egypt and a 1880s to 1920s disco with themed food and drink to buy.

A Vintage Disco? A Cabinet of Curiosities? Talks on "Esoteric Egypt in London" by Professor Roger Luckhurst, and "Fantasy Egypt on British Screens" by our fave expert on gay and camp ancient history John J Johnston? 1860s Egyptian Traveller Gin Cocktails?

Oh, and dressing-up opportunities!







How could we resist..?

To celebrate this fantastical evening, here's one of the (most appropriate) songs played by our lovely lady DJs Miss Amara Thornton and Miss Bibi Smythe at the event - it's the wonderful Douglas Byng!

Douglas Byng - I'm a Mummy (An Old Egyptian Queen)

Petrie Museum website

Dougie Byng and banjoleles, Nancy and masturbation, lynch mobs, drag and a helicopter crash

Mr Paul Burston, impresario of "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari, certainly knows how to throw a party! With no less than four costume changes during the evening - Victorian military fetish, twisted evening wear, a Debbie Harry t-shirt, and even full drag(!). His selection of guest spécialistes des Belles Lettres gave us a wide and varied evening's entertainment last night - and once more, little Tony, John-John and I had a great time!



Opening the show was the (unpublished) "writer and psychotherapist" Chris Payne, reading some rather smutty extracts from one of his gay-themed works - I guess his forays into the literary world are very fresh indeed, as there is absolutely nothing about him on the web... Entertaining, nonetheless.



Our second reader, the rather buff Mr Chris Chalmers recently won a debut novel competition run by e-publishers Wink Publishing and as a consequence has actually won a publishing deal. His novel Five to One is apparently "coming to a Kindle near you" at the moment. The story is an intriguing one, judging form the taster extract he read. The blurb alone says it all - "Four lives that collide at 12.55 one sunny afternoon, when a helicopter crashes on Clapham Common. It’s a day that changes them all forever - and for one of them, it’s also their last." Leaving us hanging - literally - in mid-air, I am intrigued to find out what happens next...



The lovely Rose Collis is a real treat - we saw her at Polari in May last year, and indeed that performance inspired the lady so much she is now taking her banjoleles 'Bud' and 'Alvin' to the Brighton Fringe. As she says on her website "though it was a short set, the combination of comedy, history and song was a hit with the audience — and it was one of the easiest and best ideas I’ve ever had to develop a full-length show."

The extracts she gave us from the revue Trouser-Wearing Characters were indeed fantastic - she specialises in biographical reminisces of famous gay and lesbian (or just camp) figures such as the journalist and broadcaster Nancy Spain and the marvellous Coral Browne, while performing old Music Hall numbers such as Masculine Women, Feminine Men. Genius! Particularly excellent was her focus on one of our own camp icons here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the "Bawdy But British" drag artiste Douglas Byng.

There is no actual video of Rose performing, unfortunately, but here's Dougie himself:

Douglas Byng and Roy Fox & His Band (with Al Bowlly on guitar)

After the break - and in complete contrast - it was the turn of John R Gordon, reading from his novel Faggamuffin. Set in Jamaica - dubbed the most homophobic country in the world by human rights groups - the passage he read set the scene for the story, as the book's hero the reggae DJ 'Cutty' is discovered in flagrante delecto with another man, and has to flee for his life from a rampaging homophobic lynch mob.

Terrifying stuff, and very near to the bone given the current continued rise of homophobic murders in the Caribbean, Africa and beyond. Mr Gordon is co-founder of the publishing company Team Angelica with Rikki Beadle-Blair, and together they help promote the issues that black gay people face. Read more about John and Fagamuffin in this excellent article from The Voice.



And finally we came to the star performer of the evening, Mr Terry Ronald - friend of Princess Kylie and all-round camp writing genius (who we last saw at the self-same Polari with Ms Collis last May). Reading once again from his 'magnum opus' Becoming Nancy, we were in hysterics at the tale of the young hero David, with his obsession with Debbie Harry and sexual fixation on a shirtless Paul Michael Glaser (even while being - ahem! - relieved by a girl friend of his sister), as he proudly announces to his family that he has landed the part of 'Nancy' in Oliver... John-John kindly purchased a copy of the book for me, which Mr Ronald duly signed - what a lovely man he is.



And to prove it, here he reads another passage from the novel:

Terry Ronald Reads From Becoming Nancy (The Discotheque)

Over too soon, and it was just time for a curtain call and to chat with some of the fab regulars (DJ Connell, Val Lee [who is reading for us next month], Alex Hopkins et al) before we were off back to Halfway for the formidable duo of Miss Rose Garden and Mrs Moore in cabaret to finish off the night.

As ever, this was a remarkable and fab night out - it is no wonder we always look forward to Polari every month!



Next month looks very special indeed - for not only does Val have a new book out (which promises to be excellent as always), but we also have a reading from none other than that star of 80s "mock-soap" Brass Miss Barbara Ewing. Also on the bill on 8th May (so far) are Danuta Kean, book editor of Mslexia, and Peter Daniels.

Polari at the Southbank Centre