The Dale Winton of banging house

Over at the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp our latest "exhibit" features the legendary Laurence Malice and his notorious gay nightclub 'Trade'.


Laurence Malice with curator Anne Marie Garbutt in front of the tribute to Tony De Vit at Islington Museum

I was pleased to be invited on Thursday to attend the preview/launch of a new exhibition Trade - often copied, never equalled at Islington Museum, celebrating 25 years since the "mother of all super-clubs" opened its doors - which coincides with the club's very last ever outing next week. One of its centrepieces is a tribute to one of the individuals without whom 'Trade' would not have been so successful...

Among the hordes of DJs who graced the decks of 'Trade', one name stands out above all others - that of Tony De Vit, a man for whose innovative mixes and ineffable ability to whip a dancefloor into a frenzy many who followed in his wake have paid due homage. After his death, Carl Cox dedicated a DJ award he was given to Tony as a tribute.

Famously described as "the Michael Barrymore of techno, the Dale Winton of banging house" (for his perma-tan and his self-deprecating wit), Mr De Vit (pronounced "de vee") in his day was ranked 5th in DJ magazine’s "Top 100 DJs In The World", 2nd in Mixmag’s "Best DJ Of The Year 1996", "Best New DJ" in Muzik magazine, "Dance DJ Of The Year" at the Molsen BEDA Awards and "Best DJ" at the International Music Awards. He also earned Music Week’s vote for "The Groundbreaking Mix of 1996" with his remix of Louise’s Naked.

And so, in keeping with today's "all things 'Trade'" theme, here are just a few of Mr De Vit's finest moments:

Louise - Naked (Tony De Vit remix)

99th Floor Elevators - Hooked (Tony De Vit Radio Edit)

S-Express - Theme From S-Express (Tony De Vit 7 Inch Mix)

RIP Tony De Vit (12th September 1957 – 2nd July 1998).

Read an interview with Tony De Vit in the 90s.

The exhibition Trade - often copied, never equalled is at Islington Museum until Saturday 16th January 2016.

The story of the failure would be very much more interesting

From Philip Hoare's article in The Guardian:

In January 1959, Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell began their campaign of theft. Starting at Hampstead Central Library on Finchley Road, north London, and moving on to libraries in Islington, they stole books of every genre, but with a particular taste for what Orton called "rubbishy novels and rubbishy books".

Back in their flat, the pair pasted pictures of male nudes, toys and budgerigars into surreal positions on the book jackets. Musclemen vied with monkeys on staid theatrical memoirs. Sybil Thorndike, the grande dame of British theatre, was replaced with a bare-breasted Henry Moore sculpture...They also added outrageously rewritten copy to the book's dust jacket flaps. Orton's humour is particularly evident in these typed blurbs. The overheard conversations that he would weave into his plays were rehearsed in what were capsule Orton dramas in their own right. Dorothy L Sayers's Gaudy Night is perverted with "Lord Peter Wimsy" urinating behind a bush after visiting a "Transvestite Den". Other would-be Sayers readers were promised underage sex and dildoes rather than a cosy detective story.

"Adding text to pervert and to ridicule became easy play," writes Ilsa Colsell in Malicious Damage, a new book analysing the collaborative art of these two men – a unique partnership that has been hitherto overshadowed by Orton's later success as a playwright. Colsell, an artist herself, sees Halliwell as Orton's mentor, the man who introduced him to aesthetic and literary theory. Indeed, Halliwell referred to themselves as "a genius like us", like a kind of Gilbert and George before their time.

Halliwell, six years older than Orton, met his partner at RADA in 1951. The men soon moved in together and began writing novels and plays – as well as pursuing their library transgressions. But as Orton's celebrity and success took over, Halliwell increasingly came to see himself as an artist, and he expanded their collages into the room the two men shared in Islington.

Mr Halliwell later attempted to introduce collages of his own creation into the serious art world - with disastrous consequences, as the art world largely pooh-poohed his works. One of his surviving pieces [many are lost, presumed destroyed after the pair's deaths] has been purchased for the Halliwell-Orton collection at Islington Museum, and it was with this as a backdrop that I went along [on Tuesday 25th February, as part of Camden and Islington LGBT History Month] to the launch of Ilsa's book - and for a fascinating discussion (in conversation with esteemed LGBT historian Dr Matt Cook, whose fab lecture I attended for IDaHo in May 2013) on whether it is time, at last, for a re-examination and "rehabilitation" of Halliwell's reputation.


'Untitled' - Kenneth Halliwell

As Ilsa and Matt acknowledged, all perspectives on the lives of Joe and Kenneth are intractibly marred by the way the pair met their end - Orton's head smashed in by Halliwell; Halliwell's suicide - but those close to the pair, including Joe's agent the indomitable Peggy Ramsay, his sister Leonie, and friends including the award-winning actor Kenneth Cranham [who was in the audience and contributed to the discussion], always pointed out a simpler reality: their love, and the longevity and mutual interdependence of their relationship. Joe was the younger man, in awe of Kenneth at first - the man who introduced him to great gay literary works by the likes of Firbank and EF Benson, et al - and they collaborated on most, if not all, of the plays, scripts and even the collages that made them famous.

In hindsight, Ilsa argues, Kenneth's collages themselves were unnecessarily derided by art snobs - motivated in part, no doubt, by the perception that Halliwell was somehow trying to "cash in" on Orton's success - and should be seen as inheritors of a great tradition of work in this style, echoing others such as Kurt Schwitters and Peter Blake. In summation, Kenneth Halliwell - the person rather than the killer - is unfairly maligned.

As Peggy Ramsay observed: [Joe and Kenneth's] lives were destroyed, one through success and the other failure... [yet] the story of the failure would be very much more interesting".



This was a brilliant and absorbing evening, and one which I was very glad to attend.

Ilsa Colsell's 'magnum opus' Malicious Damage is available from Donlon Books, price £35.

Camden and Islington LGBT History Month 2014

I'm Going! Are You..? - LGBT History Month 2014

[photo: Polari magazine]

LGBT History Month is in its 9th year and occurs throughout the UK each February. This year’s theme is Music.

Although I am no longer co-Chair of Islington Council's LGBT staff forum, I have been, and remain, heavily involved in the planning of the History Month celebrations across the two boroughs of Camden and Islington. Once again, it would seem that the sterling efforts of Camden LGBT Forum - who actually do the donkey-work of getting events sorted out - has produced the largest programme of events in the UK, for the second year running!

From big movers (Arsenal, British Museum, University College London, London Metropolitan University, the NHS) to small and bold shakers (local businesses, schools, theatres, museums, libraries and community groups) the programme has at least one event on every day of February - around 50 confirmed so far, and more events to be announced even at this late stage.



Among the highlights are:

• Sochi 2014, a pioneering new play chronicling the lives of LGBT Russians living under the country's anti-gay laws - reviewed in The Independent;
• An exhibition and related events for the newly acquired collage Untitled no.2 by Joe Orton's lover (and murderer) Kenneth Halliwell in Islington Museum;
• Professor Bryce Morrison of the Royal Academy of Music, and contributor the The Times and Gramophone Magazine, presenting a queer music-themed lecture on the art of being a music critic;
• A Desert Island Discs-style "your choice in music" event, to which I have been asked to contribute, at the world-famous Camden Roundhouse.
• The annual Loudest Whispers LGBT Arts Exhibition at St Pancras Hospital;
• Films about Benjamin Britten, Weimar Berlin, lesbian divas of the Blues era, the history of alt-queer Club Wotever (and possibly one about a certain "Angry Incher"...);
• Evenings with Neil McKenna, Maisie Trollette, Jonathan Kemp, Roz Kaveney, Matt Cook, Christopher Fowler, Dave Lynn and the cast of Once - The Musical (not all on the same stage!);
• Events themed around Burlesque, poetry, Pirate Radio, Derek Jarman, choral singing, sport, sex workers, Ancient Egypt and the classical world, science, Magnus Hirschfeld, Bollywood glitz, comedy, painting, Tchaikovsky...and Xena the Warrior Princess(!); and
• The Closing Night Extravaganza Ball (always a joy!)

And to launch this magnificent programme of events, I am proud to showcase the video we have commissioned - I'm Going! [NB this is the full version with "out-takes" - the short, snappy version is on the Camden LGBT Forum website] [2019 UPDATE: the long version has now gone from YouTube, so here is the published work]:

Produced by the fabulously-titled Three Flying Piglets video production company, I'm Going features friends, volunteers and associates of Camden LGBT Forum, the legendary Al Pillay, drag queen Earl Grey, local LGBT entrepreneurs and the Mayors of both Camden and Islington councils. Jimmy Somerville gave his personal permission for the Felix Gauder remix of his Small Wonder to be used (there is a rumour he may be encouraged to make a rare personal appearance at the Ball) - and in all I think it is rather splendid! [NB check the credits for a name-check pour moi.]

Spread the word! - http://camdenlgbtforum.org.uk/imgoing/

Full listings for Camden and Islington LGBT History Month 2014 are available (and will be updated regularly) on the Camden LGBT Forum website - and of course I will be providing regular updates here before and during the month (even if we are away in Spain for the first week, and probably not back in London straight afterwards, I am already planning to attend a good few events).

LGBT History Month official website

I annoy hundreds of old ladies

Madam Arcati and I went to the private preview of the Malicious Damage exhibition at the shiny and (relatively) new Islington Museum yesterday evening, with free wine and nibbles [there are some perks to being a council employee!].

The exhibition (as I featured over at my other blog Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp recently) is the first time that all the library book covers wittily defaced by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell have been properly presented and put on display together, and it was fabulous to see them in the flesh, so to speak.



Of their "crime", for which the boys received six months' detention, Joe said in a 1967 interview with Eamonn Andrews:

"I have no regrets at all - I had a marvellous time in prison.

"It meant that instead of annoying a few old ladies who opened the books it now means I annoy hundreds of old ladies by writing plays."

Joe Orton television interview, 1967

For an invitation-only event, the gallery was remarkably packed - Islington is certainly proud of its formerly notorious son. As are his family, so it would seem - we met Joe's sister Leonie, who was there to officially open the exhibition. A lovely lady:

Leonie Barnet-Orton talks about her childhood with her 'big' brother Joe, their family life, his work and about his partner Kenneth Halliwell

I can highly recommend you see this exhibition if you can!

Malicious Damage runs until 21st January 2012 at Islington Museum, Finsbury Library, 245 St John Street, London, EC1V