A dude, a lesbian surprise, a feast, a brunch, a pansy and big baubles

Our little gang (Me, John-John, little Tony, Paul, Jim, Emma, the lovely Justin, Bryanne, Simon and chums) gathered on Monday for Polari's traditional Xmas send-off. A double celebration - the last outing for "London's peerless gay literary salon" for 2015, and the grand finale of host Paul Burston's ground-breaking Polari national tour - which seems to have hit more towns and cities up and down the UK than the Olympic torch!



So it was with great pride that Paul introduced our opener for the evening, his stalwart accompanist on every one of those "roadshow" events, the marvellous VG (Val) Lee to the stage. Sparkling and entertaining as always, she glittered with festive baubles as she read for us some suitable extracts from her forthcoming anthology featuring the fearsome ex-friend and neighbour "Deirdre". In the absence of any of those out there in interweb-land, however, here she is reading two (more familiar) "Deirdre" stories from Brighton's L-Fest earlier this year, "dude":

VG Lee reads at L-Fest

Andrea Stuart, author of the prize-winning historical examination of her own (shocking) heritage Sugar in the Blood read from her short story that was published in Granta journal, The Tourist, about her own coming-out as a lesbian - which, given her youthful propensity for men, appears to have been as much of a surprise to her as it was to everyone else... Read more if you are a Granta subscriber.


[Photo: Krystyna FitzGerald-Morris]

Next up was the (first outing for) our friend, the multi-talented Mr Marcus Reeves, who has "ditched the mask" in favour of a rather fetching black velvet evening gown, in which he performed for us a couple of new numbers he recently released, including Three Little Words:

Marcus Reeves - Three Little Words

He also read from his anthology of prose and poetry Sighs Ten ("fresh from my publisher, Prontaprint"), including a rather juicy poem, Eat You Whole from which this is a mere snippet:

Don't talk with your mouth full
Or bite off more than you can chew
The only dish I'm laying on my table
Is a man-sized portion of you

Phew. It was time for a break, a smoke and a top-up to cool down...



The last time we saw Ms Paula Varjack at Polari four years ago(!), I described the experience as "being 'Varjacked'". Little has changed...

She's utterly mesmerising in the way she blends her background music with her spoken word performance - her star piece was a pithy rumination on the contrast between actually seeing drum and bass legend Goldie live at last recently, with a full orchestra (and it was over the man's music she recited), and her remembered feelings as a young girl first listening to his albums. However, it was this short startler with which she opened (and got the audience perked up) - Brunch Date:




[Photo: Krystyna FitzGerald-Morris]

And so, our star reader of the evening, the enchanting Paul Bailey had (once again) to try and follow something like that...

That he managed it, in his measured, subtle and very, very funny way was a credit to the man. We loved his recollections - from his memoir An Immaculate Mistake: Scenes from Childhood and Beyond - of his closeted (and unconventional) childhood and teen years as a gay boy attempting to throw off the constraints of convention in the 1950s, the disapproval of his mother (whose cultural references included calling opera "closet music" sung by "squawking foreign cows" and Shakespeare "a snob"; and whose concerns about her son were that he was "not natural") and enter the world of the theatre (with its coterie of gay men, users and mentors alike).

Our favourite quote: ”I was a Battersea pansy, wary of displaying his true colours in the sunlight. Pansy. The hardiest of perennials.”

Perfection. The audience loved him.


[Photo: Krystyna FitzGerald-Morris]

There was one more treat in store, however. As it is the Festering Season, the finale could only be - as is traditional at Polari - courtesy of the Singing Christmas Tree (Mr Reeves again)!



Unstoppable.

And so, as Paul called the readers back to the stage to rousing applause, we bid our fond seasonal greetings to the assembled punters and to Polari itself for 2015.



Our next outing is on 29th January, with Alex Marwood, Timothy Graves, Stevie Henden, Anya Nyx - and our headliner is Adam Mars-Jones.


[Photo: Krystyna FitzGerald-Morris]

Polari. We love it.

Ghosts, Gods, Blue Peter, Proustian brothels and a sausage on the side

After a little hiatus (thanks to the complications of this darned house move, unfortunately) it was with great excitement that I, in the company of Paul, Jim, little Tony and John-John (whose own hiatus, due to a lot of family problems, had been a bit longer than that - he hadn't been since last October!), ventured off on a gloriously hot evening yesterday (too hot in the 5th floor function room of the Royal Festival Hall, truth be told, but that's incidental) for the final summer outing for "London's premier gay literary salon" Polari.

Our host Paul Burston was bursting with energy as usual as he opened proceedings - to a packed house including Emma and Toby, Lauren Henderson aka Rebecca Chance and her coterie of "safety gays", Anni, Val, Bryanne and Simon, and assorted literati, regulars and otherwise, as well as Polari virgins" Dug (who I used to work with) and boyf Simon.



We were extremely proud that our chum, esteemed fellow blogger and "friend to the famous" (it was he to whom I am eternally grateful for arranging tickets for the Mari Wilson concert at Soho Jazz Café in January) Wayne Herbert was occupying the "first-timer slot", as our opening reader.

The audience was enraptured as he read an extract from his fabulous blog Introspections of a displaced Boulevardier, set around the minutiae of eccentric (real-life-I'm-sure) characters in North London's up-and-coming Crouch Hill district, where he lives:

‘Who’s Cyril?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you listen to a word I say Wayne? Cyril, the guy who lives in my block.’

‘Lil I promise you haven’t mentioned him before.’ Lil told so many stories it was difficult to retain the detail. They were invariably colourful, contained drama or tragedy or both. I’m not sure I’d have forgotten hearing about her other gay friends though.

‘Well anyway, he’s in his late sixties and a confirmed bachelor, or so he says.’ Lil released a mammoth cackle, ‘I wasn’t fooled. I managed to wheedle it out of him.’

I was glad I’d ordered a vegetarian breakfast, with a sausage on the side; listening to Lil on a roll was hungry work. I sliced a juicy grilled tomato and pressed it against a sliver of Halloumi. I raised the loaded fork to my mouth and looked expectantly at Lil to continue.

‘He moved in three years ago and wears yellow Marks’ trousers with floral shirts and silk scarves and I knew straight away. He’d lived in Brighton and done a flat swap.

I asked him if he watched Downton Abbey. He said he did, and then I asked who his favourite character was, and do you know who he said?’

‘No idea Lil.’ I didn’t know where our conversation was going or how many clichés we would be embracing.

‘Thomas the Under-butler.’ Lil’s response was perspicacious from her tone but I wasn’t so sure.

‘Thomas is a conniving, sly manipulator. Perhaps Cyril likes those qualities. I don’t think identifying with a character in a TV show gives certainty Lil, although the clothing you describe could tell a different story,’ I said. I started to laugh and thought I’d been funny. Lil wasn’t laughing.

‘No, Cyril is a nice chap. He’s drawn to Thomas as he hides his sexuality too.’ Lil was orating as if a University Professor. ‘And I’m certain that Thomas would be your favourite character too Mr Boulevardier.’ Lil crowed again.

‘I like the Dowager Countess. Maggie Smith has all the best lines,’ I said. In fact I liked Maggie Smith in most of her roles, ‘Tea with Mussolini’ being my favourite.

‘Exactly. That’s precisely the same,’ Lil wasn’t for turning today.

Following Wayne's triumphal debut was another newbie, Mr Vernal Scott (former Head of Equality and Diversity for Islington Council, no less; admittedly before I started work there). His seminal work God's Other Children - A London Memoir has (impressively) forewords by Lord Paul Boateng, Sir Nick Partridge and Peter Tatchell, and covers not only his nasty upbringing in a stiflingly gospel-church-y household (whose brethren had a distinctly pervy method of "excising the demons" that were associated - by them - with his coming out as gay), but also chronicles the devastation that AIDS cut through a whole generation of gorgeous and talented young men in the 80s and 90s.

Familiar - and very upsetting at points - territory, his reading really summed up an era of sadness and survival quite magnificently, I thought. I could hardly breathe by the end.

Here he is in person, talking about the book:

[2019 UPDATE - video gone from the interwebs]



Providing a little (needed) light relief, next up was a familiar face to us Polari-ites - Tiffany Murray, a very entertaining woman whose readings from her memoir Diamond Star Halo enthralled us back in 2012. She's ventured into the world of fiction of late (specifically the genre of ghost stories) with her new book Sugar Hall, which tells the tale of a German-born family whose straitened circumstances force them to desert the comforts of London for a spooky old house on the Welsh borders.

Miss Murray's writing is sublime, as is evidenced by these passages. First, the wistful (and ever-so-slightly camp) cogitations of the novel's central character, the boy Dieter:

Not long ago Ma had been so glamorous.

Glamour was a word Dieter loved because he had read it in a thick-as-a-brick magazine called Vogue that Ma kept between her mattress and bedsprings at 52C Shelley House, Churchill Gardens, SW1. ‘Glamour’ was a word Dieter loved because when you said it the words made your face smile at the first ‘gla’ and then they made you blow a kiss on the ‘mour’.

‘Gla-mour.’

Dieter liked that. He liked it so much he once practised the word in the bathroom mirror, wearing Ma’s Siren Red lipstick.

‘Gla-mour.’

And, as young Dieter tries to tell his mother and sister about the ghostly boy he has seen:

‘I’m not making it up. He just popped into the air, from nothing, and he stared at me and didn’t say a word, and he looked so ill, and I felt dreadfully funny all over. There is a strange boy out there.’

Dieter pointed to the bay window and the wild red gardens. He squinted; it was all too bright in the countryside and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like this house: he hated the fact it was home now. London was his place to be. By the river: Churchill Gardens.

‘He just appeared, and he wore a silver collar…’ Dieter’s voice tailed off.

Saskia latched onto these last words and snorted. ‘Don’t be silly, Dee. Boys don’t wear collars. Vicars do and dogs do.’ She glared at him and Dieter felt his fear settle, a burrowing toad. The points of the toad’s wet, sharp feet, its warty sides, all dug deep into Dieter’s belly; his breath went and he collapsed into his grandfather’s lime-green armchair.

Dust puffed.

Remarkable.

After a break for a fag and a top-up of booze, it was time for the ever-wonderful VG (Val) Lee, one of the panel of judges, to take to the stage to announce the longlist for this year's Polari First Book Prize. The titles are:

• I Am Nobody's Nigger by Dean Atta (Westbourne Press)
• Stephen Dearsley’s Summer of Love by Colin Bell (Ward Wood Publishing)
• The Girl with The Treasure Chest by VA Fearon (VIllage Books)
• The Palace of Curiosities by Rosie Garland (Harper Collins)
• The Falling Sky by Pippa Goldschmidt (Freight Books)
• Petite Mort by Beatrice Hitchman (Serpent’s Tail)
• Hainault via Newbury Park and Other Broken Tracks by Keith Jarrett (self-published)
• The Birds That Never Flew by Margot McCuaig (ThunderPoint Publishing)
• Fairytales for Lost Children by Diriye Osman (Team Angelica)
• God's Other Children - A London Memoir by Vernal W. Scott (self-published)
• The Rubbish Lesbian by Sarah Westwood (Mimwood Press)
• Out in the Army by James Wharton (Biteback Publishing)

All very worthy, I'm sure - and the shortlist will be unveiled in September.



But next up was a big surprise! For opening the second half with an extract from her new, and as yet unpublished, historical work was none other than former Blue Peter presenter (and mother of house fave Sophie Ellis-Bexter) Miss Janet Ellis!

The piece she read was very amusing, in a creepy-sort-of-way given its subject matter, as a naive young girl in the Georgian era is given a little more of an extra-curricular anatomy lesson from her lascivious home tutor than she could have bargained for...

I look forward to reading/hearing more from the lovely Miss Ellis's new chosen career move [no clips or extracts appear to be online as yet, more's the pity].

Our headliner, however, was a real treat (again). Looking rather physically frail these days, but nonetheless with every iota of wit and subtlety fully intact, Mr Paul Bailey is a true veteran of literature. Twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, he was awarded the EM Forster Award in 1974 and, forty years on, is still writing magnificent classics. He treated us to one of his pithy readings last year (when the combination of Celia Imrie, Fidelis Morgan and Rebecca Chance, who preceded his arrival, were a formidable act to follow), and is an all-round charming person.

He read a passage from his first solidly gay-themed masterwork The Prince's Boy , a convoluted tale of a Parisian brothel part-founded by Marcel Proust, a former "favourite boy" of a Romanian minor royal who now turns "tricks", and the randy encounters of the tale's narrator (another émigré - "Romanian by birth, French by choice, English by accident") with him, in the fantastically decadent and dangerous world just before the rise of fascism. Read an extract online.



It was utterly fabulous, and the audience rightly gave him a heartfelt ovation.

And that, unfortunately, was it - until September! [Featuring Joanna Briscoe, Colin Kelley, Carole Morin, Trudy Howson and more, apparently. I can't wait.]

Polari

Fishwives, an amputated nose, hoofers, bonk-busters, brothels and a kiss from Miss Babs

[Photo: krysphotos.co.uk]

Last night's outing for "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari was possibly one of the most entertaining, most thrilling evenings I have had for a long time! We had been promised a "special surprise guest", and my word did we get one - none other than the lovely Celia Imrie!



Ange, John-John, little Tony, our Paul, Craig and "Polari virgin" William were champing at the bit with excitement as we took our seats, and our host Paul Burston opened the show by introducing our first reader, newcomer and recipient of a number of "first book" awards Miss Kerry Hudson.



She read us a very funny extract from the book that has won her all those accolades, the amusingly-titled Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma. A tale that "tells the story of a Scottish childhood of filthy council flats and B&Bs, screeching women, feckless men, fags and booze and drugs, the dole queue and bread and marge sandwiches" - how could you not love a novel that opens like this?

‘Get out, you cunting, shitting, little fucking fucker!’ were the first words I ever heard. The midwife, a shiny-faced woman who learned entirely new turns of phrase that night, smoothed Ma’s hair.

‘Yer both fine. We’ll have tae give yeh a quick stitch up later, but – baby girl just ripped you a wee bit coming out.’

Ma laid me, sticky and slack-limbed, on her chest and wondered how something so pink, puckered and fragile could be so vicious as to tear the person who was meant to love her most in the world. But that was the Ryan Women: fishwives to the marrow, they were always ready to fight and knew the places that would cut deepest.

I was not vicious, though. No one could tell if I was clever, or sly as my grandma had predicted while blowing Benson & Hedges smoke rings over my ma's swollen belly. I was a "bad baby", forever gurning and spitting out my ma's nipple. My delicate skin had mottled with the indignation of being ripped by forceps from a warm, cosy spot where I was perfectly happy.

For all my fretful kicking at the air and scratching at my own face, my saving grace was beauty. Everyone said so; a golden baby with extra-blue eyes, the slope of my nose and forehead just so.

"She'll be a wee heartbreaker," Grandma said, smoothing down her mint-green nylon trousers. "But she'll have a lot o' jealousy. An' I know wha' a burden it is tae be born with beauty."

Grandma's violet eyes filled and the tears seeped through her pale powder into the wrinkles underneath.

Ma held me to her bony chest, resting my bum on the roll of flesh under her sharp ribs, which was all that remained of my home.

"Aye, she takes after her daddy. He was gorgeous. Those American blue eyes. She's the spit of him."

Ma's face crumpled, her mouth sagged in a whine and her face turned pink. I wondered what I'd been born into.

Other mas in the ward came over and eyed me suspiciously, checking I wasn't heavier, livelier or prettier than their babies. Ma's – my – family came and held their faces so close to mine I could smell whether they'd had booze or food for breakfast. It was mostly booze.

Excellent...



Next to the podium was an old favourite - the wonderful actress and writer of plays, non-fiction and whodunits, and wearer of the most fabulous array of diamanté and pearls Miss Fidelis Morgan (who we so enjoyed at her last visit to Polari in January 2013).

She was as entertaining and dramatic as ever, reading an extract from one of her 18th century murder mysteries The Rival Queens, featuring the Countess Ashby de la Zouche, her maid, some outlandish theatricals, a lot of society gossip, scandalous affairs and intrigue, and some unfortunate amputations (a missing nose being the least of it); and a second from her more recent, and equally intriguing novel, The Murder Quadrille. But this was not all Miss Morgan was going to do on this particular evening...



As an almost hysterical Mr Burston - who had been asked by the lady in question "am I really a gay icon?", to which the only answer could be "of course you bloody well are!" - introduced Miss Celia Imrie to the stage, to riotous applause from our packed audience (that included such arty luminaries as Terry Ronald, Stephen Appleby, Helen Smith, Eve Ferret, Suzi Feay, VG Lee, Max Wallis, William Parker, DJ Connell and Toby Tobes), so Miss Morgan reappeared to play "interviewer" for Miss Imrie [the two ladies are evidently very close friends, and the chemistry was perfect], as she related some of the many fascinating anecdotes from her autobiography The Happy Hoofer.



From her phobia of flying that means she travels everywhere on cruise ships, to the preponderance of plastic surgeons among the swanky boutiques of Los Angeles (where she landed her recent role in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), to the harrowing experience of auditions, to her myriad film and TV appearances and co-stars, she presented each vignette in such a charming and engaging manner, we were hypnotised - and she finished of with a world premiere of a hilarious piece from her forthcoming one-woman show. We really must look out for that one!

Here is the lady herself, taking a little about the book:

Celia Imrie on The Happy Hoofer

And here (inevitably) is one of her classic appearances on the legendary Acorn Antiques:

Celia Imrie in Acorn Antiques

Exhausted with laughing, it was time for a break - during which time we queued for copies of The Happy Hoofer, which the wonderful Miss Imrie duly signed. Then it was time for part two...



There is very little that could top the experience of of Celia (and Fidelis) on stage, so our fave Miss Lauren Henderson aka Rebecca Chance was taking few risks when she manoeuvred the two ladies to tread the boards once again, this time to act out a marvellous scene from one of her own bonk-busters Killer Heels.



Mere words cannot describe how utterly camp this was, but suffice to say we were in stitches as "ruthless fashion magazine editor Victoria Glossop" (Miss Imrie) savaged "starry-eyed ingenue Jodie/Coco Raeburn" (Miss Morgan) at her interview for the job of her PA (shades of The Devil Wears Prada). With Lauren/Rebecca's narration on top, this was totally outrageous, priceless stuff!



As our headline reader the eminent Paul Bailey remarked drily, "I only wish I could have lowered the tone. I don't think that is possible." However, he rounded-off the sexual theme of the evening perfectly with his exquisitely-written (and read) pieces from his book Uncle Rudolf - the first charting the inner turmoil and conflict of a wartime Romanian refugee and his hesitant, stumbling encounter with the longed-for "beast" he so desires in a male brothel in Paris, and the second, also in a brothel (of the female kind), where the boy confronts his inner feelings while faced with the dilemma of an unwanted prostitute purchased for him by his beloved uncle. Exemplary literary magic; we were transfixed.



And so, leaving us breathless with the exuberance of it all, the evening sadly ended (with the usual mingling and chatting; before going for more drinks to calm down).



This was a first-class Polari - the like of which we are unlikely to see again in a hurry - proving once more that this is indeed one of the best nights out you can have anywhere...

Polari now has its own website - http://www.polariliterarysalon.co.uk/.

On the bill at the next one on Tuesday 28th May are old favourites Christopher Fowler, Sophia Blackwell and VG Lee, plus Andrew Belshaw, Greg Mitchell and Anny Knight. Can't wait!

Cranes, Coward - and Carry On!

Ah, Polari! How we love it...

It was with much anticipation that we gathered last night at the Royal Festival Hall for our monthly literary "fix". For the build-up had been whetting our appetities for weeks - until Paul Burston finally told the world that his "surprise" reader was none other than that mistress of the sultry double-entendre herself, Miss Fenella Fielding!

John-John and I and our new regular Maria were joined by the lovely Tony, "Polari virgin" Ange, and her friends Emma and Toby. And having breezed past the ebullient Molly Parkin (whose magnificent presence graced Polari back in December), who was being interviewed on camera, we bagged our usual Royal Box for the evening's entertainment.

After an introduction by Paul, our opening reading was from actor-turned-writer Tim Blackwell, whose first published work - a compilation of short stories called The Bingo Caller is due on the shelves this month. Very beautiful, it was too...



Next up, the Russian poet Dmitry Kuzmin read some charming pieces on life and love that he had translated especially for the occasion. Very sweet, once you got used to the pronunciation (English is his second language after all).

Diction is no problem for our "star turn" for the evening, however! Fenella Fielding [who we last saw at the inauguration of Bette Bourne - who was in the audience last night - into the House of Homosexual Culture at the Oval House Theatre in 2008] is a camp icon, a legend in her own lifetime, and a "national treasure"! She was appearing last night as her friend the Kiwi author Michael Menzies was allegedly "too shy", despite having flown from his LA home to be there especially. But weren't we ecstatic about that?!



Mr Menzies' memoir Deeply Superficial provided Miss Fielding with the camp material she needed for such an occasion - the story of a life touched by theatricality from a very early age. Noel Coward and Marlene Dietrich were his boyhood idols - and his obsession continued throughout his life.

I proudly showed my mother the purchases I had made.

She liked Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare: had never heard of it, but didn’t seem to mind Le Petit Prince. (“Seems charming” she said as she flicked through the pages.) Prater Violet and The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood elicited no response, but when she came to the Coward autobiography, she made a gurgling sound, clutched her pearls and quite clearly displayed disapproval.

“I don t think this is quite suitable” she said.

“But you said I could buy whatever I liked”. (It was the biggest book I had bought)

“I did” she admitted, “but...” Her voice trailed off, her mouth a moue, as if it were full of lemon juice.

Of course, this made me extremely curious and I read the Coward autobiography, gulping the words and the thoughts greedily, as if they were English Trifle (to this day, my favourite dessert), Like the character Amanda in Coward’s masterpiece play – Private Lives – I became “jagged with sophistication” at the age of twelve, and went around saying “I love you awfully. Awfully, awfully, dreadfully”.

I thought it sounded very worldly.

Reading between the lines of his book, I became aware that Coward was a homosexual (as was I). All the guilt and shame I had felt about this part of my nature, and the resultant exclusion and avoidance of straight-boyhood companions, slid from me like a snake shedding it’s skin.

After consuming Present Indicative, my sexuality never bothered me again.

I could become as beloved and famous and as successful as Coward, for his homosexuality never held him back. I was determined mine would not do so, either.

Wonderful stuff, read beautifully in that smoky, seductive voice - and we were overjoyed to meet and have our photo taken with this splendid lady!



After the break, a gossip, a fag, and more wine, we settled in for the heavyweights. Opening reader Issy Festing is actually very new to the published literary world - and her first novel The Bird Keeper has received some excellent reviews.



Set in her native Indian sub-continent (Miss Festing was born in Bengal but moved to London when she was three years old), it traces the forbidden love between Satchin, an ornithologist at Naagpur bird sanctuary, and the charming and handsome tourist Peter. From the extract she read it seems a most beautiful story, as the return of Siberian Cranes (who pair for life) to the reserve serves as an analogy for the secret love between two men in a turbulent country:

"There was stillness to the golden light so peculiar to midday when everything has true colour. The sky overhead was a cloudless azure only seen in Rajasthan. Looking forward to a light lunch and a nap, I leisurely headed back to the Observatory, all thoughts of the Englishman gone from my mind. You see, at the time I forgot about you, but unknown to me then, your image had transposed itself into the mirror of my memory only to be reflected back to me again later."

Our next reader was one we have heard before. Adam Mars-Jones first came to Polari to read from his novel Pilcrow back in 2009, and last night he was back with its sequel Cedilla. [NB both are obscure terms for punctuation or pronunciation marks.] Still following the life of the disabled gay Hindu convert anti-hero John Cromer (Mr Mars-Jones apparently plans this to be a trilogy), it is an eccentric yet endearing tale of one boy's frustration and resilience in the face of the many obstacles that life throws in his way.



Taking the literary journey to its logical conclusion, our final "headline" reader, the eminent Paul Bailey - awarded the E. M. Forster Award in 1974 and the George Orwell Prize in 1978 - read from his perhaps autobiographical tale Chapman's Odyssey. In this story the narrator ruminates on his ebbing life from a hospital bed: "a voyage of discovery that could only end with his death. He read voraciously, then judiciously, and found his writing voice by rejecting the voices of those he was tempted to impersonate." Weighty yet touching stuff, Mr Bailey is a charming and elegant reader, and his insights into a world long ago when homosexuality was an almost alien concept in society were fascinating.



A triumphal night once again!

I really thoroughly enjoyed this evening, and once more cannot wait for the next one on Monday 23 May - the line-up so far announced includes (the biographer of Stephen Tennant and Noel Coward) Philip Hoare, the gender-bending Alex Drummond, "faggy genderqueer" Len Lukowska and gay ukulele-playing writer and historian Rose Collis. Should be very camp - but nothing to beat last night!

Polari at the Southbank Centre