This is the first of Stuart Marshall's video films in which I appeared with Grazyna Monvid. As with much of Stuart's work the questions raised here are to do with the politics and fustrations of communication and relationships. How may we talk about Relationship?
Stuart had written parts two and three of this tripartite film under the title "The Paths of Least Resistance" which he then developed into The Love Show later that year. Again, I appeared with Grazyna Monvid here - as I did with all of Stuart's Marshall's films that I worked on.
Stuart asked me to do this film after seeing Gay Sweatshop's Production of “As Time Goes By” in which I portrayed Dr Magnus Hirschfeld in Gay Sweatshop's original production of the play in 1977 that toured the UK and Europe. The film addressed the targetting and scapegoating of homosexuals and by extension people who contracted AIDS, by the media, the medical profession, criminologists etc. This resonated with the treatment of homosexuals and other people who were undesirable to and eventually killed by the Nazi regime in Germany. The film's strength for me is its clear, strong, oppositional yet caring voice at a time when many of us were striving to live with AIDS in a period of fear and ignorance. The film was a Caught in the Act Production broadcast by Channel 4 in 1985.
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