A gay cop, a micro-penis at 35,000 feet, the return of the Queen of Teen, a pas de deux of lust and love, and some twirling

A second outing for Polari - "London's peerless gay literary salon" - in a month? Ambassador, you are spoiling us!

And so on Monday this week, I and John-John (and Bryanne, Simon, Jayne, VG, Anny, and many more familiar faces this time) settled in for a feast...



Our genial host Mr Paul Burston was resplendent in purple in tribute to the dearly departed Prince (as was much of the lighting at the glittering Fifth Floor Function Room at the Royal Festival Hall), as he introduced this latest outing for what is undoubtedly one the Southbank's premier literary events - of which he, and the events team at the Centre, should be rightly proud.



Opening proceedings was a "Polari virgin", Mark Lock - coincidentally(?) from the same bit of Wales from whence hails Mr B (home town of rugby stud Gavin Henson, newsreader Huw Edwards and recently deceased drug smuggler turned author Howard Marks - Bridgend, I believe). He read from his debut crime-novel-with-a-twist Dead Man's Hand (recently chosen by book retailer WH Smith for promotion in their "Fresh Talent" series). It's blurb reads thus:

DI Hal Luchewski is a jaded London cop with a turbulent past and a complicated personal life. The stress of his job is getting to him – usually in the form of hard drink. He’s still living in his dead father’s shadow, his relationship with his daughter is strained, and his love life is complex to say the least… although nearly 40, Hal’s still reconciling himself to the fact he’s gay.

...and the piece Mr Lock read, where Hal is challenged about his attitude to being gay (and to his pick-ups in general) by one of his recent one-night-stands, was rather intriguing.



But up next - remarkably early in the evening's schedule, we thought - was the moment we (and many of the Polari regulars) were waiting for. The return of Rebecca Chance - recently described by TheGayUK as "a heady mix of RuPaul meets Joan Rivers"! One of our favourite readers/performers at Polari, she didn't disappoint - as she invited another chum and regular punter Wayne Herbert (writer and actor) to accompany her on one of her notorious re-enactments of a suitably smutty passage from her new book Mile High. Introducing the story - a highly-publicised maiden flight of a flagship new craft in the armada of an airline not-at-all-related-to-Virgin, on board which is not only a superstar singer with a stalker, a convicted criminal and a range of celebs, but also a randy pilot, a jealous head stewardess, and a new member of the in-flight team transferred in from recently folded budget flight company not-at-all-related-to-Ryanair - she had the audience hooting at such throwaway plot "spoilers" as "I think I’m the first author ever to have an accidental lesbian bondage scene"...

So it came to pass that Wayne had the onerous task of transforming his immaculately-coiffured persona into that of a lascivious and uncouth telly chef not-at-all-related-to-Gordon-Ramsay, as he (hilariously) attempts sex in the shower room with the newbie stewardess - and she can't feel a thing. A bastard-persona-created-for-television, the result of its creator having a micro-penis? Oh, how our real-life perceptions have been changed forever :-)



Completing the triumvirate of readers in the first half was Juno Dawson, making her own debut of sorts. For last time we saw the crowned "Queen of Teen" in September last year she read as James Dawson, and this was her first reading for Polari since she "came out" as trans. It was a confident performance, and the audience loved her. She was scheduled to headline the night's event but unfortunately had to depart early for home in Brighton.

Here she is reading from her recent novel Spot The Difference at World Book Day's Teen Fest:

Juno Dawson - Spot the Difference

And so, the break. Thankfully the Southbank Centre is an excellently accessible venue, and even with broken foot and crutch I was able to dash out for a fag and get back in plenty of time for the second half.

Rachel B Glaser, evidently an American expat, treated us to a reading from her own debut, Paulina and Fran, which was very good (despite being another "teenage interest novel"), but was somewhat diluted by the distinctly monotone delivery. Its blurb reads thus:

A story of friendship, art, sex, and curly hair: an audaciously witty debut tracing the pas de deux of lust and love between two young, uncertain, conflicted art students.

At their New England art school, Paulina and Fran both stand apart from the crowd. Paulina is striking and sexually adventurous—a self-proclaimed queen bee with a devastating mean-girl streak. With her gorgeous untamed head of curly hair, Fran is quirky, sweet, and sexually innocent. An aspiring painter whose potential outstrips her confidence, she floats dreamily through criticisms and dance floors alike. On a school trip to Norway, the girls are drawn together, each disarmed by the other’s charisma. Though their bond is instant and powerful, it’s also wracked by complications. When Fran winds up dating one of Paulina’s ex-boyfriends, an incensed Paulina becomes determined to destroy the couple, creating a rift that will shape their lives well past the halcyon days of art school.

The reviewers certainly love it, even if her friends seated at the table only seemed interested in their phones.



And finally, our surprise headliner - another familiar face from Polari past, Mr Will Davis, reading from How Not to Survive, the forthcoming sequel to his semi-autobiographical My Side of the Story. I can't find any extracts of his writing, nor any videos of him reading - so, it is to his "other" major skill to which I turn to show off his talent. Mr Davis is also an accomplished aerialist; and here he is a-twirling!

Will Davis at the Aeronaut

With the warm applause for the final "curtain call" resounding in our ears, that was it, once more, for another heady evening.

There is no Polari at the Southbank in May, but it returns to the Light Lounge in Soho on 9th May, featuring readings from Paul McVeigh, Jacquie Lawrence, Carl Stanley and Jules Grant. Our next outing at the Royal Festival Hall will be on 1st June (part of the annual "Festival of Love", apparently), and features Chris Neil, Tehmina Kazi, Richard Scott, Susan Heffernan and headliner (and favourite) Sophia Blackwell.

We love Polari!

Elderly drug-dealers, monsters, a Brownskirt, a psychopath and an heir to Virginia Woolf

"The Polari First Book Prize is for a first book which explores the LGBT experience and is open to any work of poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction published in the UK in English within the twelve months of the deadline for submissions. Self-published works in both print and digital formats are eligible for submission."

So it was with antici...pation [again!] that John-John, Paul, Jim, little Tony, Wayne, Emma, Jayne, Lexi, Val, Simon, Bryanne, Anni, Lauren and a horde of other keen readers thronged to the rather posh venue of the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre for the gala evening to announce the winner of the Prize. Mr Paul Burston, as nervous as a first-time Dad, was, as ever, Master of Ceremonies, and artfully steered us to welcome our readers to the centre of a much larger stage than is normal for our intimate event.

Absolute sweetheart and Polari regular Justin David had the unenviable task of being first to take the stage in front of that vast, echoey hall, to open the show. However he confidently leapt straight into a passage from his début novella, titled The Pharmacist; the tale of amateur photographer Billy and his growing entanglement (with less-than-fatherly motives, one is led to suspect) with his eccentric, mysterious elderly neighbour Albert, and his unlikely and rather surprising way of supplementing his income:

"...he's gripped by this debonair gentleman. Billy disregards the transaction he thought might have taken place. It's the old man he's interested in. He must live locally. Billy's seen him at least three times before, here on this street. Unmistakeable. When the old man walks, trailing rich aromatic smoke from his pipe, he holds himself taut and regal. This graceful image of a man is enough to spark Billy's interest for unconventional behaviour, and he manages a couple of good shots of the man, amid his photographs of the flowers.

From his place in the sunlight, he observed the old man doff his hat and say goodbye to the flower seller, punctuated by a flourish of his hand.

Look at that, thinks Billy. The flair, the twirl - he loves that the man doesn't conform to any normal code of behaviour. Swanning swiftly through the crowds of fashionably dressed people carrying freakishly cut flowers, the old gentleman disappears round the corner into Laburnum Road. Billy follows quickly to see if he can get another shot to take back to the studio. The old man fascinates him and he wonders if he may have found new subject. The gentleman heads down the east-end street towards the Victorian maisonettes where Billy lives. It's a great surprise to him to see the old man take a key from his pocket and slip into the communal entrance of his building; Billy's building. 'Oh my God!' Billy can't help saying out loud, before reaching the front door. 'He lives upstairs.'

All rather enthralling, we thought...



Trapeze artist, aerial acrobat and award-winning author - and another familiar face from Polari - Mr Will Davis was up next with a very odd short story indeed, all about a neurotic and distinctly un-monster-like giant sea monster, titled I Eat People(!) Quirky, funny and completely off-the-wall - one of his early works, it was long-listed for the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize 2012/13, yet remains unpublished. Instead, here's a little potted video all about the man himself:



Cute.



All twirling and quirky literary thoughts were rudely brushed aside in a thrice, however, when the grandiose stage was invaded once more by the Dame-Judi-obsessed and self-proclaimed "Poet-in-residence at the 197 bus stop", Barbara Brownskirt, with her "menstrual fuelled words". Poems, actually. Well, sort of. More like rants, really:

Barbara Brownskirt - The Normal Day

Barbara Brownskirt - Big Day Out

Unstoppable as always, she progressed through several classics from her as-yet-unpublished eighteen volumes of poetry, much to the delight of the audience. We congratulated the lovely Karen MacLeod (for it is indeed she) later for making us once again roar with laughter, and for being possibly the first person to say "vagina" on stage at the Purcell Room.

After the break and a little smoke'n'drink-fuelled promenade on the Thameside terrace of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, it was time to reclaim our seats and on with the show!



Mari Hannah is a class act. Winner of the Polari First Book Prize in 2013 for her first novel The Murder Wall, she's certainly a prolific writer - she's already published her fourth book (all featuring the lady lesbian DCI Kate Daniels), with a fifth apparently on its way.

It was from her latest, Monument to Murder, that she read a gripping extract - flick-flakking between the edgy scenario of our heroine facing a potentially lethal encounter (alone, on a wintry Northumberland beach, site of the recent discovery of two murdered children's bodies) with a psychopath on the loose, and the book's other female lead character (prison psychologist Emily McCann, who is being stalked by said sex offender) as she returns home to find her daughter apparently missing...

It's all heart-stopping stuff. No wonder that the rights to her novels have been optioned for a future television adaptation - by none other than Stephen Fry's production company, Sprout Pictures!



Our headline reader, the wee Scottish academician and author Ali Smith ("an heir to Virginia Woolf", according to the Telegraph) must be waiting with bated breath at the moment - for on 14th October she will find out if she's "third time lucky"; having been twice previously short-listed for the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction, her novel How To Be Both is on the short-list again this year!

And it was from that very book that she read us (at breakneck speed, without losing any clarity) a most wonderful passage - just one snippet from this much-lauded "multi-layered" story that simultaneously charts the modern-day life of recently bereaved pubescent George(ina) and the 15th century fresco painter Francesco del Cossa, and how they (figmentally?) actually get to meet. In her piece, she hilariously related an account of the remarkably successful trip by young Francesco (in Ms Smith's version of this real-life character, "he" was actually born a "she") to a Florentine brothel where, rather than be "entertained" by the prostitutes, "he" ends up painting them (and, in a twist, the girls pay him for this service)... It was utterly superb. She deserves to win. Here is Ali Smith talking about the book on BBC 2's Newsnight programme this week:



Miss Smith was wildly applauded for her reading, but it wasn't over yet, folks!



And so it came to the climax of the evening's celebrations - as the very lovely panel-member Matt Cain took to the podium to make the announcement we had all been waiting for. The winner of the coveted Polari First Book Prize 2014 is Diriye Osman for his seminal Fairytales for Lost Children, an anthology of tales of "people constantly on the verge of self-revelation; these characters - young, gay and lesbian Somalis - must navigate the complexities of family, identity and the immigrant experience as they tumble towards freedom."

Mr Osman was obviously overjoyed at his success! We congratulated him (clutching the award to his chest, together with his £1000 prize money presented on stage by the hunky "Men-At-Play-type" Vincent Francois, Chair of the UK LGBT Network and Regional Head of Audit at Societé Generale) in the lobby afterwards, and he was still out-of-breath but (as always) smiling. Bless. A deserved winner.



Thus, it was all over for another glittering evening (and, in the case of the Prize, for another year) bar the schmoozing...

Our next outing will be to wish "London's premier gay literary salon" Polari a happy seventh birthday in the esteemed company of Neil Bartlett, Ben Ferguson, Sarah Bramley, Niven Govinden and Alex Marwood on 26th November. Once more - I can't wait!

Polari

Midwest trans, gay superheroes, a Messiah, brown skirts, Elsie and tomato masturbation

[photo courtesy of Krys at KrysPhotos]

Yet again, Paul Burston proved that Polari is more than merely "London's peerless gay literary salon", it is in fact one of the best evening's entertainment you can have with your clothes on! John-John, Craig, little Tony, Ange, "Polari virgin" Vicky, our Paul and I (and an audience that not only included regulars such as Val (VG) Lee but also the estimable Marcus Reeves and gay royalty Bette Bourne) were treated to a spectacular selection of divertissements last night.

Opening with a visual tribute to the cover art of Bowie's new album The Next Day, Paul introduced a newcomer to such events, the diminutive Lucy Danser.



Miss Danser apparently studied Acting and Playwriting at the University of Indiana in Bloomington - a MidWest city not famous for its multicultural tolerance - where, to her surprise, she encountered a most unusual restaurateur, Rachael. This remarkable trans individual - formerly known as Eric - and her valiant struggle to maintain "Rachael's Café" as an oasis where everyone is accepted with no exceptions, standing firm against archetypal Redneck attitudes, inspired Lucy to write a play based upon her life. Miss Danser read us a passage from this fascinating work, which illustrated the difficulties of running this unique venue perfectly. Rachael's Café has been staged at fringe festivals in Edinburgh, Dublin, London and Brighton, and I hope it gets the support it deserves for a proper theatrical run...



Our second reader, Will Davis is an award winning writer and trapeze artist (a most unusual combination, admittedly). As on the last occasion we saw him at Polari, it was the former skill with which he entertained us - with a rather fab and hilarious short story Super Closet, about the bothersome experiences of a world-famous superhero struggling with potentially the only foe that might defeat him - his own homosexuality, and society's homophobia. A brilliant concept, excellently delivered. We were enraptured.



However, our next performer took us on a completely different and unexpected course, as Paul introduced "boylesque" performer Mr Mistress as "The Gay Messiah"! Mere words cannot describe this incredible piece, so here he/she is in person:

Mr Mistress - Gay Messiah

Still reeling from that performance, it was almost time for the break when the stage was invaded by a most unusual protestor - "Barbara Brownskirt from Penge"! Resplendent in cagoule and sensible shoes, she "treated" us to some of her - ahem! - poetry, before being unceremoniously chucked out (to go and "invade the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival", apparently)...



It was, of course, a brilliant and hilarious piss-take by none other than our next reader and Polari favourite, the wonderful Miss Karen McLeod. After the break, the lady herself took centre stage (looking a lot better than her "Barbara Brownskirt" incarnation). She treated us to two of her beautifully-written short stories - both of which feature on her magnificent blog The View From The Thirteenth Floor - the rather funny Sorry, Simon Amstell and rather more touching My Name is Elsie, about escorting her Mum to see her Aunty in a nursing home:

Mum gets out a box of Maltesers. I pull off the cellophane as Mum says her fingers aren't working today.

I notice Elsie looks like her sister, my mum's mother, my grandmother. It's the look of being old, crumpled and tired. Her legs have lost all shape of ankle. I go into the room to fetch her cardigan and skim the row of old folks in the main room. This Morning is on TV and I start praying that I don't end up sat in a room filled with sleeping strangers, watching Eamon Holmes' equivalent. But then again they probably prayed not to be old once too. I stop myself from welling up. I think how all the people look strangely alike.

Karen writes so beautifully. We were stunned...



Before we had chance to get too maudlin - difficult anyway, given Miss McLeod's bubbly personality - it was time for our headliner, cartoonist Steven Appleby!



We loved his previous visit here back in December 2011, and this time he began with a bit of a recap of his story, his life, and the wild imaginings that permeate his drawings - including favourite characters "Dragman" and "Loomus". However, there was an even greater treat in store, as he plucked from a pot (that Val Lee had been around collecting from the audience earlier) a selection of people's "hidden secrets".

From two of these - "I was tempted to push someone off the platform on the Tube" and "I was supposed to plant my tomato seeds, but spent the morning masturbating instead" (!) - he proceeded to create pieces of his wonderful artwork before our eyes!



It was a joy to behold, and a fitting culmination to a brilliant night...





We love Polari!

Award-winning author Paul Bailey headlines the next outing for Polari at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday 26th April 2013. I can't wait...

Seamen stained, Brass bosomed, mesmeric trapeze artistry, Aunt Ed and MacHeath

Mr Paul Burston struck a bit of a Mafioso pose as he opened another evening of treats at "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari last night, complete with shades, pinstripes - and a "MacHeath" stiletto blade!

Sat in "theatre style" rows for a change - the evening was so over-subscribed they had to add extra seating (of course the lovely Lauren Henderson aka Rebecca Chance had bagged most of the front row for her "gay husbands" and her real one!) - John-John, Ange, Paul, Jim and I sensed gangland trouble afoot, but nah... just literature!



Danuta Kean, an expert in writing and writers and regular columnist in the book trade press opened the proceedings with aplomb. Paul informed us it was her first public reading, but you'd never have guessed, as she confidently breezed through her short piece.



Next to the stage was a pirate! Actually, it was the historian and writer Peter Daniels, who provided us with a truly marvellous entertainment - his poem "The Ballad of Captain Rigby"...

Ned Rigby was a navy man,
the captain of the Dragon;
his famous ways with seamen
were a kind you may imagine.

The poem in its fabulous entirety is the newest exhibit in the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp - you will love it as much as we did!



The lovely Miss Barbara Ewing was responsible for one of our fave characters on early evening telly back in the early 80s - as the redoubtable big-bosomed "earth mother" Agnes Fairchild in cult comedy Brass:

Timothy West and Barbara Ewing in Brass

Now she has turned her talents to writing, and has had reasonable success as an author of historical novels. Her chosen reading was from The Mesmerist - a dark mystery about the Victorian craze for mesmerism (or as we know it now, hypnotism) and how an attempted scam turns into something genuinely bordering on the psychic... Fascinating stuff!



After the break it was the turn to the rather cute Will Davis, who is apparently an aerialist (although, unfortunately, his feet remained firmly on the floor and he didn't arrive on the stage from a rope!) as well as an author and books editor for Attitude magazine. He read us a passage from his new book The Trapeze Artist about a man who runs away with a circus after suffering a nervous breakdown - and excellent it was too!



However, it was our headliner VG (Val) Lee - possibly the funniest and most entertaining reader among the "Polari Royalty" - who stole the show! Reading from her brand new novel Always you, Edina - a tangled tale of doomed family relationships - she delivered every delicious line in her customary hilariously deadpan manner, and we lapped up every word with relish. Simply marvellous!



Once again, a classic evening - and once again all over and done with far too soon!

"And Macheath spends like a sailor
Did our boy do something rash?"

The next instalment of Polari is on 10th June 2012, and readers so far announced are Alex Marwood and Kristian Johns - bring it on!

Polari at the Southbank Centre