It's not the bum sex that was the big problem

From my own published interview with Rupert Smith in Beige magazine (he says, modestly):

In a nutshell it is about a young woman now - Helen - who has a famous grandfather [Edward] who was a novelist loathed by the critics; very, very successful and loved by the public. She begins to dig around into his past, his "real" story to find out why he stopped writing when he did and his career went stone dead. The more she finds out, the more she begins to understand why that is, but in the process she discovers some truths about her own family that might have been better left undiscovered. She possibly wishes she hadn't.

The great relationship between her grandfather Edward and the love of his life Billy is the cause and effect that drives the whole thing... The secrets Helen discovers about her family stem from the shame and secretiveness of Edward and Billy, but as we discover, it's not the bum sex that was eventually the big problem.

It was with these themes in mind (knowing that I was likely to be one of the few people in the audience who had read it, and therefore understood exactly what the mysterious "secret" was) that I went along with John-John and Paul to the launch of Rupert's latest opus Interlude at the chi-chi New Bloomsbury Set bar yesterday afternoon.



As ever, Rupert's mellifluous tones, as he read passages from the book, held the crowd in hushed attentiveness. The audience was a mixed bag of literary types and "friends of the family", newbies and die-hard fans.

The divine David McAlmont was there. The event was hosted by the sexy Uli from Gay's the Word bookshop (around the corner). I was overjoyed to see former Polari DJ (from its early days in the Trash Palace and Freedom Bar in Soho) Dom Agius - whose stunning photographic portrait of a male model graces the book's cover - as I hadn't seen him in years.

The room was packed out, in fact, and everyone gave The Author a massive round of applause.

This was an enjoyable event, as book launches go - engaging and never dry (Mr Smith is a past master of the witty aside), and the readings and the question and answer session afterwards were excellent.

I really hope it does well. Interlude is certainly one of the best books I have read for a long time!

[PS I never did get a complimentary copy (other than the proof copy by email) for my journalistic efforts - so had to buy it at the event, and Rupert kindly signed it.]

Buy a copy today via Waterstones or Amazon.

Books and fruit

"We were looking for somewhere central but cheap and I found out that Camden Council had some empty shops in Marchmont Street due to the cancellation of the second phase of the Brunswick Centre.  I applied for the lease of one with no response. I discovered, through a gay friend who worked for the council, that the officers were not taking it seriously – my surname, Hole, being the reason for that."

When, a couple of weeks ago, the magnificent institution that is Gay's The Word bookshop in Bloomsbury celebrated its 33rd birthday with a rather excellent historical article by its founder Ernest Hole (published in the splendid online gay journal Polari Magazine), little did I know this would bring a rather unexpected musical discovery.

For among the reminisces, Mr Hole recalled how the shop would be packed to the gunnels every Thursday in the late 70s/early 80s. This crowd was there to hear a remarkable cabaret performer (and obvious influence on the likes of Kit and the Widow and Topping and Butch) - Mr Mark Bunyan, who is still performing his magnificent innuendo-filled ditties today!

My personal favourite (and if you listen, you'll understand why!) - The Fruit Song:

Mark Bunyan - The Fruit Song

... and the fab IKEA Song:

Mark Bunyan - BILLY - The IKEA Song

Magnificent - I hope to catch him live one day!



Gay's The Word is the UK's pioneering first (and is today the last surviving) lesbian and gay bookshop. It is one of the places every self-respecting gayer simply must visit when in London - meanwhile visit their website.

I will be featuring a few more blogs on the theme of gay history during this, LGBT History Month.

Gay as Artform

“The history of art, which is usually based on assumptions of continuity, is not easily integrated with the history of homosexuality, which is conventionally premised on alienation.”

Paul(ine) and I minced off to the venerable Gay's The Word bookshop in Bloomsbury yesterday evening for the launch of American Professor Christopher Reed’s book Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas, with a presentation and talk by the author. Excellent and informative stuff, indeed.

The book covers everything from ancient Greece and Rome to primitive Native American and Polynesian art, and European art from medieval times through the present. He traces the progression of the way gay (erotic and non-erotic) depictions progressed from completely acceptable (the marriage of Emperor Basil I to another man) through the idealisation of the male form in the Renaissance (Michaelangelo's David), to Caravaggio's dirty angels, to Ingres and his Achilles Receiving the Ambassadors of Agamemnon (below), to the deliberate titillation and simultaneous condemnation of homosexuality in Victorian times (culminating in the persecution of Oscar Wilde), to modernism and Tom of Finland.



Prof Reed has a particular disdain for the way that many scholars seem to link "the outsider" that is conventionally assumed to be the artist - particularly those of the so-called avant-garde movement - with the world of the homosexual. In his words:

"The institutionalisation of gay and lesbian identity into organisations seeking the political and social normalisation of homosexuality...was often marked by disavowals of flamboyantly visual manifestations of minority sexual identity. At the same time, an examination of the history of modern art from the position of the history of homosexuality explodes myths of the avant-garde as either an arena of freewheeling inventiveness or a safe haven for misfits.

On the contrary, the avant-garde often exploited homophobia to attract attention while energetically suppressing affirmative expressions of sexual deviance and policing the behaviours and beliefs of artists who aspired to its rewards. Groundbreaking visualisation of the physical and emotional bonds between people of the same sex, therefore, often originated outside the avant-garde in realms of popular culture before being appropriated as avant-garde spectacle."

This was a fascinating exploration of a subject, and we did enjoy the experience, despite Professor Reed's heavy concentration on some daft American examples of modernism (seemingly all done by friends of his).

The book itself, at £27.99, remained (sadly) out of reach of our pockets...

Art and Homosexuality - A History of Ideas

Gay's The Word bookshop

Born Brilliant

We trolled along on a sunny Sunday afternoon last weekend to the wonderful "Gay's The Word" bookshop in arty Bloomsbury for a special reading - the launch of Christopher Stevens' definitive masterwork on the life of Kenneth Williams, Born Brilliant.

A wonderful, knowledgeable and witty reader, Mr Stevens gave us practically chapter-and-verse the story of Kenny's childhood, his acting and dressing-up games and his burgeoning desire to better himself - and that was just for starters! For the next couple of hours, he presented anecdote after anecdote, observation after theory, about this wonderful man (including his conclusion that Kenny's death was not suicide, but an unfortunate reaction between barbiturates and Zantac).

As one of his surviving family friends (who Mr Stevens managed to get to speak publicly for the first time) put it, Kenneth Williams was essentially "afraid of maturity". The well-documented private person behind the hysterically camp public image was in effect a forever stunted pseudo-adolescent, wilfully avoiding grown-up matters such as sex, relationships and responsibility, preferring obsessive cleanliness, solitude and the ultimate expression of "selfishness" - his diary.

Kenny was apparently embarrassed by the fact that he embarked upon his acting career with no formal drama school training behind him. He felt somehow unworthy of the parts he got, yet deserving of better - this was just one of the many contradictions in his life. Despite being wildly popular with the critics and the public alike, a few of the West End productions in which he starred were not a commercial success. This bothered him immensely. He disliked being the pivot upon which any production hinged. He much preferred being a player, part of a company where some other "deserving" star - be it Ingrid Bergman or Maggie Smith, or even Hancock - was the one upon whose head the responsibility for its success or failure rested.

Loathing - whether of self, or (much to many people's surprise and upset once the fuller version of his diaries was published after his death) of fellow actors, colleagues and friends - seems to be the watchword for Kenny's life. He resented his father's bombastic manner, and the mental and physical decline that led the Williams family out of slum poverty into middle-class Bloomsbury and back again into bankruptcy. He loathed the direction that his career had taken him (in particular the eternally popular Carry On films). He loathed the arrogance of Hancock, the sordid commonness of Sid James, the sleaze of Joe Orton, and the downright rudeness of Orson Welles (who, remarkably, offered him the opportunity to launch a career in America, which Kenny turned down). He could be cruel and waspish at the drop of a hat, and cared little who he upset in the process.

However, as Mr Stevens has also found, the mercurial nature of Kenneth Williams meant his life was not all doom-and-gloom. When he did cultivate friendships, they lasted more or less for the rest of his life. He proposed to several female friends, including Sheila Hancock and Joan Sims. He was loved for, and thoroughly enjoyed, being a "national treasure" - queen of the chat shows. He certainly revelled in the sexlessness of his Music Hall style of camp - innuendo without the "messy bits".

And we adored him for it! That is I assume why Mr Stevens embarked on this project. To conduct such careful research into the life of a man about whom millions of words have already been written (many by his own hand, indeed), reading every single one of the great man's diaries (incidentally written longhand in at least twelve different styles of handwriting, depending on Kenneth's mood!), to interview childhood friends previously unknown, to produce a comprehensive biography of this magnitude - it is a labour of love. I have just opened this impressive tome, and look forward to reading it from cover to cover...

Here's the ebullient Mr Williams, the ultimate chat show guest:

Kenneth Williams - Parkinson, 1980

...and here, his classic "Franglais" piss-take:

Kenneth Williams - Ma Crepe Suzette

Buy your copy of Born Brilliant from Foyles

or visit

Gay's the Word bookshop