Arts BOOK REVIEW: Straight Expectations by Peggy Cryden An excellent book and most useful to any parent/s experiencing gender diversity matters with their children or who yearn to learn from lived and loving experience in how to equip their children to live without labels and grow up in a world apparently obsessed with them By Eric Page • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: The Wedding Singer @Theatre Royal Based on the 1998 box office breaking movie, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, The Wedding Singer’s original musical score written by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin has much to offer but sadly on first hearing, few memorable tunes. By Besi • 2 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: The Merry Millionaire Duology by John Wells This is a story of privilege and indulgence, of luxury and secrets of seeming to be one thing, but being another and it’s also a story of white privilege in last days of imperial exploitation and indulgence of the European (and particular British) elites of the time and a story of gay love and sex l By Eric Page • 3 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Timber by Dale Lazarov & Player In ‘Timber’, a hunky third-wheel bachelor goes on a quiet hike in his solitude after his paired up friends disturb his sleep by having endless early morning sex in the campgrounds. After completely losing his way in a slightly magical forest, he meets an uncannily-masculine threesome of lumberjacks By Eric Page • 1 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: No Fear No Shame by Alice Denny This new collection of poems from Alice Denny, like herself, is slim but packs a punch. There is an essential contradiction in all Denny’s poems; like all poets she’s both startlingly intimate and ruthlessness private, exposing and hiding, showing and telling, letting us feel the throb of blood in h By Eric Page • 2 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Black Wave: Michelle Tea Teas’ prose is wonderful, Queer, lusciously Lesbo, darkly Dykey and frothy, filthy and fun. It’s a seriously gripping and evocative tale of Queer women love in all the messy hyper clarity colourful mixed up ways that Tea can tweak and twist her lady loving ideas into. By Eric Page • 2 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Bitch Doctrine – Essays for Dissenting Adults: Laurie Penny Noted British feminist writer tackles gender, sexism, identity, and power issues in a world being laid waste by “kamikaze capitalism.” From her opening premise that ‘toxic masculinity is killing the world’ you’ve got a really clear idea of where this elegant, refined and ruthlessly researched, argue By Eric Page • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: MAMMA MIA! @Brighton Centre MAMA MIA! is a perfectly constructed musical, with great music written by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, and a clever storyline constructed around the songs of ABBA by Catherine Johnson. It’s a story of young and old love. A story about strong women and the love old friends have each other. Sing By Besi • 3 min read
Arts REVIEW: La Cage Aux Folles @Theatre Royal When La Cage Aux Folles opened in 1983 it was very much a ‘piece of its time’ scripted by Harvey Fierstein with music by Jerry Herman and introducing the world to the fabulous Les Cagelles. Those were the days before we had gay marriage and many of the rights we now enjoy. The musical gave gay peopl By Besi • 3 min read
Arts REVIEW: ‘Love Actually’ – Actually Gay Men’s Chorus Love Actually – the contribution by Actually Gay Men’s Chorus to this years Brighton Pride celebrations was the perfect way to mark the 50th Anniversary of the partial repeal of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 in England and Wales. By Besi • 3 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Queer City: Peter Ackroyd Ackroyd connects us modern day queers up with our Celtic and Roman forbearers and all the benders, faggots, dykes, trannies, queers, inverts, perverts, queens, Ganymede’s, sappho’s, cross dressers, gender twisters, fops, dandies, genderqueers and utterly baroque non binary beauties (and run of the By Eric Page • 3 min read
Arts REVIEW: Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus – Showtime @St Georges Church It is difficult to find new things to say about the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus that I have not written before, except that at their Pride Concert (July 29) at St Georges Church, Kemptown, they once again turned in a highly polished performance, highlighting the strength in depth of the chorus’s soloi By Besi • 3 min read
