FEB 2020 CONTENTS GSCENE magazine CHARLES STREET TAP www.gscene.com @gscene GScene.Brighton PUBLISHER Peter Storrow TEL 01273 749 947 EDITORIAL [email protected] ADS+ARTWORK [email protected] EDITORIAL TEAM Jaq Bayles, Craig Hanlon-Smith, Graham Robson ARTS EDITOR Michael Hootman SUB EDITOR Graham Robson AMSTERDAM DESIGN Michèle Allardyce QUEENS ARMS FRONT COVER MODELS John McCullough, Sea Sharp & Rose Collis PHOTOGRAPHER Simon Pepper D www.simonpepperphotography.com I simonpepperphotography F simonpepperphotographer CONTRIBUTORS Simon Adams, Jaq Bayles, Jo Bourne, Nick Boston, Brian Butler, Richard Jeneway, Craig Hanlon-Smith, Samuel Hall, Enzo Marra, Eric Page, Emma THE VILLAGE Rylands, Gay Socrates, Michael Steinhage, Glen Stevens, Duncan Stewart, Netty Wendt, Roger Wheeler, NEWS Kate Wildblood 4 News FEATURES PHOTOGRAPHERS Creag Aaro, Steven Chantrey, Nick 12 LGBT+ HISTORY MONTH SCENE LISTINGS Ford, Craig Hanlon-Smith, Jack Lynn, Diary of some of the events and exhibitions marking LGBT+ History Month Simon Pepper 24 Gscene Out & About 26 Brighton & Hove 14 QUEER THE PIER New exhibition that chronicles the city’s recent LGBTQ+ history 43 Solent 15 SEA SHARP & ROSE COLLIS ARTS Meet two of the writers celebrated in the exhibition Exponent Of Breath 46 Arts News 48 Classical Notes © GSCENE 2020 16 HEAR US OUT All work appearing in Gscene Ltd is copyright. Jaq Bayles chats to Dinos Aristidou artistic director of Celebrating Our Stories 50 Arts Jazz It is to be assumed that the copyright for material rests with the magazine unless 50 Arts Matters otherwise stated on the page concerned. No 17 TIME TRAVELS part of this publication may be reproduced, Jane Traies author of Now You See Me: Lesbian Life Stories talks to Jaq Bayles 52 Arts Books stored in an electronic or other retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, 18 RECKLESS PAPER BIRDS REGULARS recording or otherwise without the prior Eric Page gives poet John McCullough a poke with his big question stick knowledge and consent of the publishers. 45 Dance Music The appearance of any person or any 19 SNOW BUSINESS 45 DJ Profile: Peter Castle organisation in Gscene is not to be construed Poet Maria Jastrzębska talks about her recent collaboration, Snow Q as an implication of the sexual orientation or 53 Shopping political persuasion of such persons or 54 Craig’s Thoughts organisations. 20 WILD ADVENTURES Writer Jill Gardiner tells Jaq Bayles how she found refuge in poetry 55 Wall’s Words 55 Gay Socrates 21 NO FEAR NO SHAME Alice Denny, poet, fabricator of phrases and sculptor of rhymes 56 Charlie Says 57 Village MCC 22 NOBODY’S SCAPEGOAT 57 Scene It How Michael James came to publish his first book at the age of 79 58 Sam Trans Man 23 THE NEXT STAGE 59 Yaya Knows Best Kathrine Smith on the success of her award-winning play, All I See Is You 59 Stuff & Things AFFINITY BAR 47 ANDREW BECKETT 60 MindOut Andrew Beckett tells Brian Butler about his passion for inclusive theatre 61 Gymfidence 49 PLAYING HIMSELF INFORMATION Sam Harrison talks to Brian Butler about his play Love Is Only Love 61 Classifieds 51 RENDEZVOUS WITH MARLENE 62 Services Directory Ute Lemper chats to Brian Butler about her new Marlene Dietrich show 63 Advertisers’ Map REGENCY TAVERN 4 DAILY NEWS UPDATES ON ) WWW.GSCENE.COM PRIDE ANNOUNCES LGBTQ+ DIVINA DE CAMPO TO HEADLINE PORTSMOUTH COMMUNITY PARADE 2020 THEME PRIDE 2020 ) Organisers of Portsmouth Pride 2020 have - BACK TO THE FUTURE announced their first headliner, Divina De Campo, Pride has announced Back to the Future as the theme for this year’s runner-up of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, for this year's community parade event and applications to take part are now open. event at Castle Field, Southsea on Saturday, June 20. Divina De Campo is the stage name of Owen Farrow, a seasoned British drag queen and singer. Known for her high soprano and four octave range, Divina has been featured on national television programmes including The Voice, All Together Now, and most recently on the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. Her love of theatre led her to star in stage productions including The Ruby Slippers, a play that explores prejudice in the LGBTQ+ community, and Dancing Bear, a musical that explores faith, sexuality and gender identity. Divina has worked with the George House Trust, a charity supporting people living with HIV. She has also hosted Superbia's Drag Queen Story Time, reading stories to young children. ) The annual Pride Community Parade is the for the Rainbow Fund, the Pride Social Impact biggest, most anticipated and exciting visual event Fund, Pride Cultural Development Fund and DIVINA DE CAMPO in Brighton & Hove’s calendar, and one of the new Pride Solidarity Fund in the last six years. best attended parade events in the whole of the The Rainbow Fund has, in its short history, UK. Each year Brighton & Hove Pride brings the become a much celebrated organisation with its whole community and many more besides out on remit to receive donations and use them to give to the city’s streets with over 400,000 grants to LGBTQ+ and HIV groups and participants. This year looks to continue in the organisations in Brighton & Hove. The Pride same vein as Brighton Pride celebrates its 30th Social Impact Fund benefits local good causes anniversary with the parade event taking place on giving grants to a range of local groups. will take place on , Saturday, August 1, 2020. Portsmouth Pride 2020 Saturday The parade’s Back To The Future theme aims to June 20 at Castle Field, Southsea. The theme for this encourage intergenerational conversations and year's Pride is Armed Forces, which ties in with the consequently a recognition of the heroes and 20th anniversary of lifting the ban on LGBTQ+ people icons that paved the way for the rights we serving in the military. celebrate today. This year there will be a judging panel of local creatives and dignitaries awarding For more info, visit: www.portsmouthpride.co.uk/ prizes for those taking part in the Parade in categories which include Best Creative, Best Costumes, Best Global LGBTQ+ Theme, and FRONTLINE AIDS WAD The Back To The Future theme will build on last Best Use of Recycled Materials. COLLECTION RAISES £1,700 year’s We Stand Together campaign, a celebration Last Autumn, Pride announced the theme for the ) Collections and donations gathered from events of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising Pride events in Preston Park was Fabuloso, and it around World AIDS Day 2019 for Frontline AIDS that ignited the global Pride movement. Pride is hoped this celebratory approach will also totalled £1,700, £1,000 of which was a generous describe this year’s theme as “reaffirmation of our influence choices made by community groups donation by a local company. commitment to campaign for global LGBTQ+ taking part in the 2020 parade. equality”. The Back To The Future theme aims to Frontline AIDS has worked on the ‘frontline’ of the celebrate the pioneering activists of our Ahead of applications for 2020, Pride issued a world’s response to HIV and AIDS for 25 years, with broadening communities’ past as well as looking statement: “Each year we are really excited to see marginalised people who are denied HIV prevention to the future and the continued strive for equality some of the innovative and spectacular creations and treatment simply because of who they are and for LGBTQ+ people all over the world. parade entrants come up with to interpret our where they live. Set up in 1993 to work with theme and while on every other weekend of the community groups in countries most affected by the Brighton & Hove Pride is the UK’s biggest Pride year a feather boa and a rainbow wig might suffice, global AIDS epidemic, this is an organisation who have Festival, operated by Brighton Pride, a not for for Pride 2020 we really hope that they pull out all continually adapted their approach, looking for profit community interest company (CIC). All the creative stops to ensure their group stands out innovative ways to break down barriers that ticket revenue goes directly to the operational and and gets it message out. And there is also the marginalise people living with, or at risk of acquiring, running costs of producing the Pride Festival, prestige their group could win its category.’ HIV. All with one goal in mind – a future free from AIDS LGBTQ+ Pride Community Parade, Pride Village for everyone, everywhere. Party and community fundraising for the Rainbow For more information and to apply, please visit the Fund and Pride Social Impact Fund. Since Pride’s Parade page on the Brighton Pride website: For more info, visit: conception as a CIC, it has raised over £922,000 brighton-pride.org/pride-parade/ www.frontlineaids.org DAILY NEWS UPDATES ON GSCENE 5 5 WWW.GSCENE.COM ) HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2020 AT SUSSEX: STAND TOGETHER ) Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 (HMD) on January 27, marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children, and people from LGBTQ+ communities, Roma & traveller communities, political prisoners, disabled peoples who had been murdered in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration extermination camps. HMD is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust under Nazi persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. HMD 2020, which also marks the 25th anniversary of the Genocide in Bosnia, examines how genocidal regimes throughout history have fractured societies by marginalising certain groups and how in a contemporary world we need to stand together with others to stop division and the spread of hatred in society.