queer
vivid memories of the late 60s:/early 70s:
My 'coming out' took place with great exhilaration when I was at the London School of Economics in 1971. There was I, high on the early meetings of Gay Lib that had recently moved from Middle Earth to the LSE and then to All Saints Hall in Notting Hill............ ....The Arts & Battledress Club in Rupert Street, Soho;.....Mandy's/Louise's Club in Peter St., Covent Garden; .....picking up men in the dark of 'The Biograph' cinema at Victoria; .....spending long evenings on the railings around Piccadilly and occasionally meeting someone nice in the White Bear Pub across the street; .....the Porchester Drag Balls (mamma mia!); ....Camden GLF Meetings at Oddfellows' Hall and discos at the Bull & Gate Pub in Kentish Town; .....Camden GLF tea rounds to cruisers on Hampstead Heath; ......Tuesday night Gay discos at the Union Tavern in Camberwell (dancing to Andy Fairweather-Low; braces and jeans); .....early meetings of the first London Gay Youth Group (where I remember meeting Colin Devereaux - now our much loved Dockyard Doris); .....the first Gay Icebreakers' Discos at the Prince Albert in King's Cross (now Central Station ) that was started for Gay Icebreakers by my dear friend Ernest Hole, who was also the founder of what became 'Gay's the Word' Bookstore (I remember helping him to sort out the books when he ran the shop from his house in Greenwich); .....fabulous GLF dances at Fulham and Lambeth Town Halls; ......early GLF Pride Marches and Gay Days in the Parks; ......early copies of 'Come Together' (which I still have !); ......'zapping' British Home Stores for the re-institution of Tony Whitehead who had been sacked on some puerile queer-related 'offence'; ......the beginning of the Brixton Fairies; Bloolips (though I never performed with Bette, more's the pity!) and Gay Sweatshop with 'Mister X' in Rupert Street (though I didn't work with them until 'As Time Goes By' in 1977.
my queer career:
1977
Gay Sweatshop
Performed as Magnus Hirschfeld in 'As Time Goes By' by Noel Greig & Drew Griffiths. Several Cabaret performances at the Drill Hall, Oval House, Herriott-Watt, (Edinburgh), Lambeth Town Hall etc. etc.
1979
Co-wrote 'Who Knows?' with Philip Timmins and Sarah Hardy for Gay Sweatshop's Youth Project the play was performed at the Royal Court.
1979-81
'The Ogrification of Boo'
A one-person performance piece I presented at the Drill Hall which focused on the 'fictitious' story of a young androgynous individual's 'ogrifying' experience of being made to choose between genders and sexualities. With musical accompaniment by Colin Richman.
Oval House Gay Youth Workshops.
Along with Nolan Walsh, a gay writer and poet, I ran a Gay Youth creative Writing Workshop which led a number of young gay men and women to come out with confidence and also write their own stuff - some of which was presented in performance in the Oval Cafe.
1982-1984
Produced nothing overtly Queer as such but took the sexual-political agenda to Hoxton Hall by booking Queer Theatre Companies, taking the Gay initiative (along with the boyf - Tom Castle, who also worked there) into the Community Theatre Programme wherever possible, on a situational/existential rather than a consciously political level.
1984-1987
With Stuart Marshall
During this time I performed in three of Stuart's films. I admired Stuart enormously and believe that we lost a valuable creative friend and inspiration when he died in 1993. 'Indistinct', 'Love Play' and 'Bright Eyes' - which was broadcast on Channel 4 in some year or the other!
1994
'Standing Beyond Time'
A performance with music on the life, times and writings of Edward Carpenter with Frances Campbell and Barbara Hartridge. Designed by Tom Castle. Performed at Hoxton Hall. With the assistance of Simon Casson. Ignored by the Press. Dislked by Eric Presland's scout.
1999
Queerness, Therapy and all that Jazz.....
As a working dramatherapist and about to finish my Ph.D on Queer Performance with the University of Exeter called 'The Queer Carnival', my Queer Career has developed along somewhat academic lines - writing and presenting papers and so forth.
'Feeling Queer in Dramatherapy' (See dramatherapy page)
'The Gender Outlaws in Performance' (First presented to the Institute for Analytical Psychology (Applied Section) in February 1999.'Splitting and Mirroring: working with the taboo of transgenderism in dramatherapy' (See dramatherapy page).