The Pink Green Room

Last night, I watched the much admired Drag Race UK for the first time. I had heard some good things about it and thought it might be worth a shot seeing as there was bugger all else on the television. So, I fired up my 'laptop' - if you can call it that. I was given it in the early 2000s by a nephew - I call it the paving slab as it's just as thick and probably just as heavy (although I can't say I have much experience of heavy lifting, dear). Anyway, I dusted the wretched thing off and turned it on for the first time in donkey's years. After navigating the web to the IPlayer, I cracked open a babycham, chewed on a salted peanut and settled into watching it. Whilst the style of drag has seemingly changed over the years, and I can't say I am RuPaul's biggest fan, I was struck by how wonderful it is to have such a popular, entertaining and flamboyant  show on our screens when in my day it would have been unimaginable. This got me looking back, once again,  on...

Far be it from me to gossip - as you all know I am discretion personified - but I was being a bit of a silver surfer the other day and stumbled across quite an interesting theatrical titbit online. You didn't hear it from me but it is  rumoured that, in his youth, the esteemed Irish actor of the last century, Micheal MacLiammoir ,  had an affair with General Eoin Duffy who, during the 1930s was the head of the quasi-fascist Irish blueshirts. Fancy that? Although, there is no evidence to substantiate this claim, other than idle gossip and tittle tattle, this got me looking back at the career of MacLiammoir and his partner Hilton Edwards. What follows, is a brief account of their story. If you care to pull up a pouffe, pour yourself a tipple of your choice and light yourself a well deserved fag, I'll begin... *** The Gate Theatre in Dublin has long been heralded as a mecca for the arts in Ireland. If I was to walk on its hallowed ground today, or any day over the last year or so...

Apologies for my absence during this last week or so, not that you've missed me. I've been away for a much deserved break in the country - the Cotswolds to be precise. I know what you're going to say but all this cogitation can be very tiring for an old soak like me, that's not to mention all the heavy lifting I do during the day - those bottles of Gordon's don't get shifted from the Co-op on their own you know, and sometimes I have to make two or three...or four trips a week. Then there's all of the public speaking I do. If you didn't know, I give talks all over the place, imparting my wisdom to whoever is stupid enough to listen. I've had the pleasure of performing before the likes of Duke of Edinburgh...the Prince of Wales... the Duchess of Bedford... and quite a few other well known London pubs. (I can only apologise for that gag - full credit should go to Mr Jameson for all of it's awfulness - but more about him in a mo).  Anyway, there I wa...

'The Green Room at Drury Lane Theatre', by George and Robert Cruickshank It's October. It's cold. It's wet. It's boring. Four things that I have been saying to myself incessantly and we're only five days into the month! With the virus still prevailing over our social lives, and much else besides, I have been persuaded, by popular demand, to transpose the junk shop of historical camp gossip and theatrical tit-bits, that I have been boring my friends and family with for years, onto the web. What follows on this blog are random, and probably sporadic, jottings to keep me occupied and out of everyone's hair. The posts are likely to delve into the arts and culture, both high and low (and not forgetting the lowest of the low) of the LGBT community in the last one-hundred years or so. Sound any good? Well frankly, whether you enjoy reading this or not is something that neither concerns nor interests me particularly - as the late, great Kenneth Williams once sai...