Wet totty, music, mud and old boozers

Gratuitous totty shot? As if. Happy 30th birthday today to Ansel Elgort [whose name actually sounds like an anagram]!

Another "snippets" post today, dear reader...

• Good news: One of our favourite shows on radio Friday Night is Music Night - the world's longest-running live orchestral music radio programme - [which was unceremoniously moved to Sundays, and then surreptitiously killed-off last November by the gnomes at BBC Radio 2] will be revived by Auntie Beeb's classical station Radio 3 this April! I cannot wait...
• Dancing in a muddy field news: Dua Lipa (yawn), Coldplay (even bigger yawn!) and SZA (nope, not a clue; sounds like an energy drink) have been announced as headliners at this year's Glastonbury Festival. Even the news that Shania Twain will be taking the closing top-of-the bill "Legends" slot, or the fact that Cyndi Lauper's there as well (for the first time), would ever tempt me to go - even if the tickets hadn't sold-out completely within half an hour of being put on sale last Autumn!
• More muck news: The UK is apparently in the middle of National Compost Week, which is literally a load of old crap. Recycled by worms, of course.
• More good news: Our "house band" here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox are back in the UK this May, and - thanks to a Ticketmaster voucher card from Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex for my 60th last year - Madam Arcati and I have booked to go and see them live at the prestigious London Palladium!
• And, finally: Maverick Soho members' club The Groucho [named after the Groucho Marx quote: “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member”], second home of the likes of Terry Pratchett, Francis Bacon, Jeffrey Bernard, Jarvis Cocker, Anthony Bourdain, Lily Allen, Melvyn Bragg, Blur’s Alex James, Rachel Weisz, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Robbie Coltrane, Nick Grimshaw, Stephen Fry, Julie Burchill and even Harry Styles - which we were honoured to visit way back in 2009 - has opened its very first "out-of-town" outpost near Wakefield in Yorkshire!

And the weather? More Spring-like than it has been in ages...

"House wine? What house? Council?!"

Our gang turned out in force to watch the stage adaptation of Clayton Littlewood's Dirty White Boy at the tiniest theatre in the Trafalgar Studios complex last night - we were actually on the stage with the players!

Many people are already familiar with Mr Littlewood's award-winning tales of the weirdness that is day-to-day life in Soho's Old Compton Street - prozzies, trannies, rent boys, hustlers, eccentrics, hoodies, tramps and old queens - they started out as a blog on Clayton's MySpace page. And here, the sublimely talented David Benson and Clayton himself brought it all to an alarmingly engrossing form of reality.

Mr Benson (who wrote recently about his professional jealousy at the success of fellow Kenneth Williams impersonator Michael Sheen) is indeed a superb actor, with the ability to convincingly transform himself from the ageing queen Leslie (with his acid quips) into his long-lost knicker obsessive love Charlie [both of whom we believe were in the audience!], to Angie proudly showing off her new lady bits, to the brothel madam upstairs, to Clayton's own boyf Jorge, with a minimum of costume accoutrements.

Brilliant stuff, as Clayton (convincingly bemused by the experience) tracks the decline of his shop alongside the (often touching) stories of his most favourite customers.

With musical interludes by the superbly talented Maggie K de Monde (formerly with the band Swansway), we thoroughly enjoyed it - and according to Clayton, there may well be some more outings for this marvellous performance in the Autumn. I think I may well book again if it comes off...

After having a brief chat with Soho's fave decadent dandy Sebastian Horsley, at the kind invitation of Clayton himself we ventured to the Groucho Club [opposite the site of his shop, now a bear emporium called "DV8", and next to the sadly now closed Colony Club)] - a venue that unsurprisingly we had never been to before. We were thrilled to be "on the list", but the thrill was slightly tarnished by the discovery that the after-party was actually in the suite adjacent to the karaoke room [an amateur "artform" I despise - my sister even suggested to Maggie that she might like to take their microphone and treat us to some proper singing instead, but I don't think she was in the mood]...

We had a great evening nonetheless - despite rumours to the contrary the drinks were not too expensive, even if the service was inevitably a bit crap. We spent time chatting to Clayton, Jorge, David, Maggie and their friends including author Kenneth Hill and the lovely and eccentric singer Al Pillay. We did a bit of star-spotting too, but I think it was "Z-list" night - Richard Bacon, Martin Degville, Hattie Hayridge, Aldo Zilli and what looked like they could be members of a cheap girl band like The Saturdays, but no-one was quite sure...

In all, a fantabulosa night!!

Anyway, here's an earlier stage adaptation of DWB from one of last year's Polari nights:

Clayton Littlewood and Roger Lloyd-Thompson - Dirty White Boy at Polari

Fab!