LGBT

Preview of the year 2007

2007 is about the future. And about the past. It’

3 Jan 2007

THE FUTURE Cyberspace invaders We may not be flying around in hover cars or wearing spangly all-silver outfits, but thanks to the internet the future has truly arrived. And the revolution will continue apace in 2007, argues Suzanne Black. A…

Hard times - Gladder to be Gay?

Festival of Politics

22 Jul 2008

Simon Callow is heading our way with both Stonewall and Dickens on his mind. Anna Millar chats to one of theatre’s hardest working men about his love of acting and support for gay rights Mere minutes out of London rehearsals for The Magic Flute and…

LGBT Youth Scotland National Gathering 2008

3 Jul 2008

YOUNG PEOPLE’S EVENT Westpark Conference Centre, Dundee, Sat 5 & Sun 6 Jul This year’s LGBT Youth Scotland National Gathering, ‘In Control, Your Life. Your Choices’, is a Scotland-wide event for LGBT young people up to the age of 26, their friends and…

Edinburgh Fringe - LGBT Highlights

17 Jul 2008

Allan Radcliffe selects the best the Fringe has to offer in comedy, theatre and music

Tick Tock Lullaby

3 Jul 2008

DRAMA (15) 72min (Peccadillo DVD retail) In one particular scene of this film, a good looking thirty-something notices that he’s been trailed by a couple of ladies, and comments that it’s the first time he’s been cruised by two gay women, and that…

Bang Bang

19 Jun 2008

CLUB NIGHT The Ivy, Glasgow, Thu 19 Jun Ladyfest has a lot to answer for. The annual celebration of female achievement in the arts drew enthusiastic crowds to its club nights and gigs when it pitched its tent in Glasgow last month. Once the circus had…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Lesbian comedians

28 Feb 2008

Stand-up comedy has always provided a platform for historically oppressed minorities. From the self-deprecatory Borscht belt humour of Mel Brooks and Rodney Dangerfield through Richard Pryor’s fearless exploration of racism to the feminist material of…

Amy Lamé’s Mama Cass Family Singers

18 Oct 2007

THEATRE Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Thu 25–Sat 27 Oct ‘I came up with the idea of a misremembered memoir which is what the show is,’ says Amy Lamé of her one-woman show Mama Cass Family Singers. ‘A lot of it is real, some of it’s made up, but it’s all…

LGBT TV Special

8 May 2008

Televised gay kisses may have come a long way since Beth Jordache on Brookside but mainstream programming still lacks fair representation (for the supposed 10% of us) with only the occasional out and proud offering, mainly The L Word and Queer as Folk.

Painted Eggs

22 May 2008

THEATRE St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh, Thu 29–Sat 31 May Gay-themed theatre is a rare beast, but drama based around the experience of transsexuals is even more exceptional. This fortnight, The Luvvies, Scotland’s LGBT community theatre company, are set…

Glasgow Film Festival - LGBT

14 Feb 2008

LGBT CINEMA Various venues and times, Thu 14–Sun 24 Feb From early, openly queer flicks such as Victim, through the work of landmark filmmakers Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Gus Van Sant, to the recent mainstream success of Ang Lee’s Brokeback…

Rhona Cameron

The Naked Drinking Club (Ebury)

13 Mar 2007

AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE In 1979, the chronicle of a year in Cameron’s teenage life, she’s an adopted Lothians lassie who fixates on girls, lets the boys take advantage of her, and watches her father die. In her first novel, The Naked Drinking Club, the…

Eurobeat – Almost Eurovision

10 Apr 2008

MUSICAL King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 22–Sat 26 Apr The Eurovision Song Contest has always been a beast of wild contradictions. The annual competition is regular derided for its middle-of-the-road compositions, political voting and the never-ending…

Queer Mutiny

17 Jan 2008

ALTERNATIVE GAY NIGHT Forest Café, Edinburgh, Fri 18 Jan The dark nooks and free’n’easy hedonism of gay venues such as the Polo Lounge and CC Blooms aren’t for everyone. Queer Mutiny and Queeruption groups are springing up across the world. Their…

Rebecca Drysdale

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

19 Jul 2007

Edinburgh Festival Fringe Bits & pieces An award-winning show with nudity, lesbianism and racial politics sounds like pretty standard Fringe fare these days. But Brian Donaldson reckons Rebecca Drysdale has quite a few cheeky tricks up her sleeve

Gay movie round-up

Gay screen

12 Feb 2007

The Glasgow Film Festival programmes five films with a queer bent this year. It’s unbearably hot in The Wayward Cloud , where Taiwan’s heatwave causes the sales of watermelons to shoot up. Hsiao-Kang tries to hide the fact that he’s a porn actor from…

Profile - Gus Van Sant

24 Apr 2008

PROFILE Suzanne Black considers the work of one of Queer cinema’s great auteurs as two of his key films are released on DVD Gus Van Sant is one of a handful of directors to have crossed from arthouse credibility to mainstream pennies and back again.

From Saturn to Glasgow: a celebration of Edwin Morgan

28 Feb 2008

POETRY EVENT Mitchell Library, Glasgow, Sun 9 Mar While the guid folk of Edinburgh are enjoying Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, this year’s Glasgow City Read focuses on a new poetry collection, From Saturn to Glasgow: Fifty Favourite Poems by Edwin…

OurSpace

31 Jan 2008

What better way of rescuing the neglected history of the nation’s LGBT community than through the great Scottish tradition of storytelling? OurSpace: Making Inner and Outer Space for LGBT Lives presents a wide array of LGBT lives through oral histories…

Funny lady

1 Nov 2007

The Glasgay! comedy wagon rolls back into town this year with a cargo of comedic talent for your pleasure. Wicked Wenches features Lucy Porter, AL Kennedy, Susan Calman and the utterly charming Zoe Lyons, a finalist on Channel 4’s So You Think You’re…

Kylie – The Exhibition

20 Sep 2007

EXHIBITION Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Fri 21 Sep–Sun 23 Jan 2008 ‘The interesting thing about Kylie is that she represents that world of glitter and glamour and sparkle that so many gay people wrap around themselves as a form of…

Gaydar

26 Mar 2007

Not long after club night Velvet closed its doors in the wee small hours of Sunday 4 February, a fire broke out at the venue, Mariners, in Leith, and destroyed the interior. The inferno was so intense the roof fell in. Alas, the next week’s gay club…

Zeus

Mariners, Edinburgh, Sat 10 Mar

28 Feb 2007

CLUB NIGHT While some clubs wind down due to changing tastes, and others change venue in an attempt to rejuvenate, one Edinburgh club is expanding its remit, with a new night aimed at the boys. Velvet, based at Mariners (a classy banqueting…

LGBT-Friendly Sports Clubs

4 Jan 2008

ACTIVITIES ROUND-UP Bloated from the Christmas blow-out? Struggling to downsize following excessive festive feasting? Instead of adding your name to the waiting list for an emergency tummy tuck why not fight the flab and extend your social network by…

World AIDS Day

29 Nov 2007

AWARENESS-RAISING Various events, Sat 1 Dec Now in its 20th year, World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic and related issues. The event, which takes place annually on 1 December, is the culmination of a year-round…