Dildos, cottaging, illicit gay goings-on in Tehran, gay flood-warnings... and Liza with a "Z"?!

It's not every literary event that provides such a mixture of the earnest, the salacious, the intelligent, the funny and a bit of unexpected pizzazz thrown in for good measure. Then again, there is no other bookish gathering quite like "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari!

And so it was that I braved the elements and, on my own for a change, went along to the latest outing - once again in the cavernous surroundings of Heaven nightclub on Wednesday night. And what a night it was, too...

Our MC the marvellous Paul Burston opened proceedings with a flourish - and without further ado, our opening salvo came courtesy of the lovely Kate Davies, 2020 Polari Prize winner and noted children's author, who has turned her hand [quite literally in the case of one of the pieces she read for us about her first fisting experience] to semi-autobiographical fiction, with a book that has been described as the ‘lesbian Bridget Jones’ In At The Deep End. From it, [the other extract she read for us] a shopping trip with a difference...

Kate Davies - In at the Deep End

More filth and depravity was to follow, thank goodness.

Our next reader was one of the nominees for this year's Polari First Book Prize [awarded annually for a first book which explores the LGBTQ+ experience] Paul Mendez. You get the idea that there must be something special about it when a debut work by any author is described by none other than Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo thus:

"When did you last read a novel about a young, black, gay, Jehovah Witness man from Wolverhampton who flees his community to make his way in London as a prostitute? This might be a debut, but Mendez is an exciting, accomplished and daring storyteller with a great ear for dialogue. Graphic Erotica Alert! Don't read this book if you like your fiction cosy and middle-of-the-road."

Indeed, from the extract he read from the work in question Rainbow Milk, where our protagonist Jesse begins his journey to a different life with a particularly raunchy encounter with a stranger in a public toilet lock-up, where both parties discover the advantages of his having no gag reflex, I think Ms Evaristo was entirely correct...

Having fanned myself sufficiently to cool down after that (all-too-familiar) reminiscence, it was time for something completely different.

Golnoosh Nour was born and brought up in Iran, and now teaches creative writing at the University of East London, Birkbeck College and the University of Bedfordshire. Her collection of short stories about the conflicted lives of LGBT+ individuals living under the religious dictatorship of her homeland, The Ministry of Guidance is nominated for the Polari Book Prize [for overall Book of the Year, excluding debuts], and she read pieces from several of them for our delectation. Here's an edited extract from An Evening of Martyrdom, revolving around a secretive gay party, gathering on the same night as the "Mourning of Muharram" [an important Shia commemoration], which I found particularly impressive:

...As a result of smoking, drinking and nibbling, Hasti's lip gloss had come off and Mina found her unpainted lips with their natural, meaty colour even more appealing. She was already sniffing the scent of her neck when Hasti grabbed her right hand and murmured, "Let's go". Mina did not know where, but followed her nonetheless.

Hasti and Mina were walking in a narrow corridor with orange wallpaper, hand in hand. Hasti a few steps ahead, leading Mina. Mina's nostrils were on Hasti's nape, sniffing its strange scent, which Mina concluded smelt like her dead mother: a mixture of cigarette smoke and spicy cologne, resulting in a smell of burnt trees, which she relished. She sensed her next painting would be a forest on fire. She knew Hasti was taking her to Omid's bedroom, at the end of the long corridor. Suddenly she felt in love with the existence of this corridor, which connected Omid's living room to his bedroom, separating her and Hasti from the rest of the party. It was indeed the best thing that could exist in a house, and probably the world...

...Hasti pushed her onto the bed. Mina pushed her back. "I need to tell you something," murmured Mina... "This is my first time."...

Mina was pleased that Hasti was 'turned on' by her confession and not taken aback. Hasti's cold fingers started running all over her body. Mina closed her eyes and let herself tremble on Omid's single bed...

...for some reason she could not talk. She was breathing heavily and the only thing she cared about was her heavenly wetness and Hasti's wet mouth. Hasti's fingers were inside her and Mina was writhing on the dark bed trying her best not to scream.

The door opened, and she felt blinded by the orange corridor and the figure of someone she didn't recognise in her inebriation, orgasm and the dark.

"The neighbours have called the police," the figure said, her voice quiet and quivering.

After three erotic tales in a row, it was time for a well-deserved cigarette. After the break, it was time for the annual award ceremony - and to announce the shortlists for the two coveted Polari Prizes, the aforementioned Kate Davies and the cute-as-a-button "slam poet" Keith Jarrett took to the stage.

The titles shortlisted for the £2000 Polari Prize are:

• The Ministry of Guidance and other stories (Golnoosh Nour, Muswell Press)
• Dragman (Steven Appleby, Jonathan Cape)
• The Air Year (Caroline Bird, Carcanet)
• What Girls Do in the Dark (Rosie Garland, Nine Arches Press)
• The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle (Neil Blackmore, Windmill)
• No Modernism Without Lesbians (Diana Souhami, Head of Zeus)

The works shortlisted for the £1000 Polari First Book Prize are:

• Rainbow Milk (Paul Mendez, Dialogue Books)
• Forced Out (Kevin Maxwell, Granta)
• A Dutiful Boy (Mohsin Zaidi, Vintage)
• Swimming in the Dark (Tomasz Jędrowski, Bloomsbury)
• Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart, Picador)
• Charred (Andreena Leeanne, Team Angelica).

Speaking of Mr Jarrett, guess who was next to take the stage?

With a particularly pithy set of backdrop photos, he read a few of his often hard-hitting, always excellent poems - including this one [just after he'd explained that it was indeed true: a UKIP councillor did claim that the floods that hit the UK in 2014 were as a result of equal marriage legislation!]:

Keith Jarrett - Poem Poem

As the lovely Keith departed the stage, so the whole evening took a completely different direction, and Paul B proudly introduced not one, but two of the greatest showbiz divas of all time to the stage!

In reality, of course, it was the creation of two stars of musical theatre Helen Sheals and Emma Dears - whose show Judy and Liza relaunched at the first post-lockdown Brighton Fringe this summer. Heavens! They were fab.

A smattering of the classics were all ticked off: Together, Wherever We Go, the famous Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy medley, the Man That Got Away, Liza with a Z, Cabaret - and a very clever medley of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Maybe This Time that was truly stupendous! I loved it.

Judy & Liza theatrical trailer

As the stardust settled to the floor, there was just time for the customary curtain-call - and that was it for another sublime evening...

We love Polari!

Dusty at the boutique, our favourite trans prozzie, lesbians through history, a gay poem and a moment of mourning for the death of old Soho

[I'm not quite so old as to remember the pub like this]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Whatever happened to The Theatre Bar? Friendly, reasonably-priced, old-fashioned, comfortable - the only gay venue in London where you could hear the likes of Ethel Merman, Peggy Lee, Shirley Bassey, John Barrowman, Liza Minnelli, Bernadette Peters, Dorothy Squires and innumerable "songs from the shows" being played night after night? The place where we first met all those characters from the theatre world such as our favourite roller-skating drag queen Eb-on-knee; the artiste soon to be known as Mrs Moore; stage-hands and wig-makers; and even Graham Norton? The place where I won (singlehandedly) the pub music quiz? Whatever happened to our hosts Wezley (aka Cassidy Connors), or Rupert or Graeme? Or regulars Tom, Roddy and Marc? Long gone, I'm afraid. The Theatre Bar closed when its "mother-ship" downstairs the West Central pub (formerly the White Bear or Polar Bear, now known as Ku Bar) disappeared for a while and "went straight". More's the pity.

Why the reminiscing? Well, the new incarnation of what was formerly the West End's campest bar is called Light Lounge, and this was the chosen venue for "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari's much-vaunted "return to its Soho roots", that I managed (painfully) to stagger along to on Monday. As a location for such an event it is most definitely found wanting. Gone is any semblance of the illustrious revelry that marked out this most historic (and perhaps slightly seedy) of corners in Soho/Chinatown, in favour of shiny surfaces and (the nowadays ubiquitous) low banquette seating. Gone is any notion of an affordable night out, in favour of drinks at £9 a pop - cocktails are, no matter how "fancily" packaged, only tiny measures of booze, and don't last long; and the venue's cider (or beer) is served in miniscule bottles for the same price as a pint everywhere else in the real world, including the Ku Bar downstairs. Ambience? Clinical. Comfort? Negligible. Toilets? Incomprehensibly awkward [flush behind the seat? How very British Rail.] Value for money? Ludicrous.

Worst of all, many of the punters - some Polari regulars (including me, Paul, little Tony, Bryanne and Simon, as well as Anny, Jayne, Tanyth and chums), and some newbies - who were crammed into the confines of the seating area couldn't even see the evening's readers. Shame, because they were worth seeing (as well as listening to, of course). Still, the glittering environs made a great backdrop for the bods at cable channel London Live, who were there (along with free gay mag Boyz) to cover the evening...



Opening the show was a "safe pair of hands" for any Polari evening, in any venue - the utterly marvellous VG (Val) Lee. She read from her soon-to-be-published new novel Mr Oliver's Object of Desire, a funny and insightful exposé of the clashing values of a boutique owner with the rapidly-changing world of late 60s/early 70s London, as he finds himself disappointed that his chosen "celebrities" for his shop's grand opening the Beverley Sisters were substituted at the last moment by some "new whipper-snapper" of a singer (bewilderingly popular with "the girls", to his chagrin) Miss Dusty Springfield...

Concluding with a crowd-pleasing "Deirdre" story, Val had the audience suitably "warmed up". Here is the lady herself, in conversation with the London Live talking head, about Polari and the London Book & Screen Week, of which this evening was a part:

London Live - Polari - VG Lee

No sooner had VG finished, it was time for a break. This, we surmised, was to give sufficient time for people to empty their credit cards behind the bar, so we went for a fag out the back.



The lovely Alexis "Lexi" Gregory, Soho stalwart himself (we first met when he was "bar whore" at another deceased venue BarCode), read us his first performance piece Through the Wilderness, about a Madonna-obsessed, half-Italian, half-Greek gay kid growing up in the suburbs of 1980s North West London dreaming of becoming an actor. Unsurprisingly, he revealed, it is autobiographical.

He also treated us to an extract from his latest play, the utterly marvellous Slap (that John-John and I went to see in Stratford last year), which completely captivated the audience, needless to say!

Here's Lexi chatting about it on London Live:

London Live - Polari - Alexis Gregory

Another break. Another over-priced drink.



Our next reader Diana Souhami is a writer of prodigious talents - in addition to the lesbian biographies for which she is most famous, she curated an exhibition on women's rights for the British Council that travelled worldwide, she has also written about the real-life Robinson Crusoe, an obscure 1940s murder, the "Bounty" mutineers and Leon Bakst's panels on the fable of Sleeping Beauty that were commissioned by the Rothschilds. Whew.

However, for Monday's audience, it was lesbians all the way - as Ms Souhami took us on a tour through her various works about painter Hannah Gluckstein ("Gluck") and her aristocratic lovers (including famed floral artiste Constance Spry), Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Mrs Alice Keppel's daughter Violet Trefusis (lover of Vita Sackville-West) and the Sapphic world of inter-War Paris with Romaine Brooks and Natalie Barney. This was an engrossing and entertaining journey, indeed - her wealth of research is impressive. Loved it.

Another break. Another fag.



Headlining this unusually disjointed Polari evening was the cute Keith Jarrett, poet and performance artist. Not to be outdone by Lexi's "autobiographical work", he gave us a selection of pieces about his own life and experiences being brought up as a budding gay boy in a God-fearing Jamaican community, culminating this one - A Gay Poem:

Keith Jarrett - A Gay Poem

He wowed the crowd, that's for certain.

And, of course, the last word goes to Mr Burston...

London Live - Polari - Paul Burston

Loved the speakers, love Polari. Thankfully the next one is back somewhere sensible - the South Bank - on 25th April (twice in a month? We are spoiled...) featuring Juno Dawson, Will Davis, Rachel B Glaser, Mark Lock, and the long-overdue return of our fave Rebecca Chance!

I can't wait!

Polari

Central Line reverie, ex-pat fetishism, Big Sister, angry poet standing and a movie stars' petting zoo

With a little nod to its past, Polari was relocated to a previous home (the Weston Pavilion) at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, last night, and we (Paul, little Tony, Jane, Emma, Toby, Wayne, Alex and I) were somewhat hemmed in by the crowd - we had forgotten how spoiled we have been in the capacious surroundings of our regular room on Level Five - but (inevitably) the heat of the smaller room gave our host Paul Burston the perfect excuse (as if ever he needs one!) to strip down to his beach-wear to show off his tan from his recent trip to Brazil (with hubby Paulo). And so it was with envy we looked on, pasty white and umbrella-bearing, as he opened proceedings for the first Polari of 2014...



Without further ado Paul introduced our first reader to the stage - Anya Nyx, novelist, writer, poet and artist, and proud wearer of wildly psychedelic tops.



Her new work in progress, which she is writing under the name Tanith Nyx, is described as "a lesbian-fantasy-adventure novel dealing with love, death, time travel and unicorns" (with a working title Palace of the Butterfly Bird). The extract she read for us delved into a mysterious time-travelling fantasy-world, in which women appear to be in charge of a "Big Sister"-dominated type of society, controlled from the top by regular uploads to a government computer of the dreams of its population. Entangled within this eerie dominatrix matriarchy, our lesbian heroine flirts with the powerful High Priestess... Anya's mainstream work is in teenage fiction, and it will be interesting to see if this novel with its gay theme, when finished, will capture that same audience.



Next to the podium was the very cute performance poet, fiction writer and educator Keith Jarrett - not to be confused with the American jazz pianist and composer, as he explained in his first poem about identity; other poems he read covered such diverse subjects as the country of his roots the Dominican Republic, race, language, and the Central Line(!)...and then there was this brilliantly funny one - A Gay Poem:

Keith Jarrett - Gay Poem

We loved it!

However, a treat of the highest campery was in store next when the marvellous former rock singer, collaborator with The Smiths and winner of the Polari First Book Prize in 2011 (none other than Julie Burchill described his memoir Autofellatio as "think Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard finally finding Mr DeMille on her doorstep and you've got it. But with better shoes.") Mr James Maker - hot-foot from his home in Valencia in Spain - took the mike, to première a passage from his new work Axed Pat, due to be published this autumn.



A marvellous insight into the secrets of ex-pat suburbia, his tale (read in his customary deadpan Mancunian manner) involved the hypocritical scorn of a woman about the nudism of her gay neighbours in their Spanish settlement - yet the woman and her husband's excessive propriety conceals a lie that tells the truth; for in fact, their entire relationship has involved pandering to hubby's kinky fetish for her wearing a succession of plastic macs as a sexual kick! Hilariously funny and insightful, I can't wait to read it... [I did say to Mr Maker I thought his reading was akin to the "reincarnation of Elsie Tanner", and he seemed overjoyed at the compliment.]

Meanwhile, as an adjunct while we wait, here's Mr Maker's latest musical effort - a cover of an old Spanish torch song, Un Año De Amor:

James Maker - Un Año De Amor

After suitably sufficient break for a fag, a trip to the bar and a bit of a catch-up with some of the regulars (DJ, VG, Paul, Bryanne, Simon, Anni, Suzi and the rest) and the evening's readers, it was time to return to our seats for part two.



Opening the show was another "newbie", and a complete wake-up call, the angry "slam" poetry of Joelle Taylor, who, in addition to performing also co-ordinates numerous educational programmes and young poetry networks, working with some of the UK's most disadvantaged communities. The video for her Last Poet Standing (which was among the poems she read for us) has even been circulated to schools as a teaching aid. And here is is:

Joelle Taylor - Last Poet Standing

All very in-yer-face. I did feel - uncomfortably at times - however, that some of her polemic may have actually been directed at us, the decidedly non-"street" audience at the Southbank..

Finishing up with customary aplomb, I was delighted at the return of Mr Christopher Fowler to our stage - a writer whose work I have always admired (his blog alone is a joy to read). He is the multi award-winning author of over 30 novels and 12 short story collections, and his latest work includes the War of the Worlds video game with Sir Patrick Stewart, a graphic novel, a Hammer Horror radio play, the memoir Film Freak and the comedy-thriller Plastic, which took six years to get published.



It was from the latter two that he read extracts for us - the first, some wonderfully gossipy moments from his earlier career in the back-of-house end of the British movie industry, including the embarrassment of badly thought-out premières:

Film premières in the UK are much slicker affairs than they used to be.

Never ones to go in for subtlety, distribution companies once staged embarrassingly literal publicity stunts for their films until Hollywood executives stopped them. During the première for ‘Hair’ at the Dominion Tottenham Court Road the unimpressed audience was pelted with flowers, while the ushers were made to wear beads and long wigs that made them look like crazy old tramp-women. For the megaflop ‘Can’t Stop The Music’ we were encouraged to attend on roller skates, but the theatre had a steeply raked floor and everyone fell over. The distributors thought carefully about the latter, putting ‘music’ and ‘England’ together and coming up with a Morris dancing display outside the cinema.

The première of the killer-rodent movie ‘Willard’ was preceded by a giant red-eyed rat being driven about London on the roof of a window-cleaner’s van, while the vomit-inducing ‘Mark Of The Devil’ had its logo printed on sick-bags. More recently, the ‘Sex And The City’ première party housed its four leads in mocked-up movie sets separated by white picket fencing, like a kind of movie stars’ petting zoo. ‘Come on, we’ve stroked Sarah Jessica Parker, let’s go and feed Carrie-Ann Moss now!’

Hilarious stuff - but his second reading was a somewhat darker affair. When one gets a line in a novel like "My name is June Cryer, and I am a dead housewife", one just has to sit up and take notice! A tale of domestic infidelity, shopping obsession and art theft, Plastic sounds fantastic! [You can read the full intro to the novel that Mr Fowler read for us on his blog.]



With the customary photo line-up (everyone was encouraged to take photos - most done (brilliantly) by the lovely DJ (Diane) Connell - as our regular photographer Krys was unwell), that was, unfortunately it for another month. But what a bloody good start to another Year of Polari!

Next month's outing (on 28th February) is an LGBT History Month special, and features VG Lee, Rose Collis, Musa Okwonga, Jonathan Broughton and Colin Bell. It will be fantabulosa, and I can't wait!

Polari

Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry

"Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry." - Baudelaire

John-John, Paul(ine) and I had another interesting and entertaining evening thanks to the lovely Paul Burston and his fantabulosa Polari gay literary salon! Even if this specially-themed "Polari goes Poetry" night did expose the fact that maybe, just sometimes, poets should let other people read their poetry...

Case in point was our opening reader Peter Daniels. His poetry is incisive, but short. And he rather befogged the audience by not indicating when each of these little thoughtful pieces was finished, so it was rather embarrassing not knowing when (or if) to clap at the appropriate moments. Some of his poems are brilliant, however! I particularly loved this lascivious little fantasy:

Breakfast, Palermo
One golden glazed bun, sliced open.
One scoop of custardy ice cream, speckled
with chips of fruit and chocolate. Sandwich them lavishly.

To be eaten in uniform by a young soldier,
with one careless hand, espresso in the other.
At the chrome bar, more coffee is hissing.
Sunshine slants in early, yellow.
Not a speck on his trousers.

[James McKay, Peter Daniels, Dean Atta, Sophia Blackwell, Keith Jarrett, Mark Wallis, Paul Burston]

Mr Daniels was followed (in complete contrast) by a rather more savvy performer - the musician and poet James McKay. Anyone who can open a set with the line "in the beginning was the word and the word was probably obscene but no-one was quite awake enough to properly hear it so I guess that makes it all right!" has my vote, anyhow. And, Geordie hunk that he is, he caused a bit of a frisson with John-John and Paul...

Hilariously, he got us all up out of our seats for a moment's contemplation, as he called us to a "prayer" - then proceeded to solemnly recite the opening lines from Bagpuss! Marvellous stuff. Read more about James at his "Make Poetry History" page.

Polari favourite the very lovely Dean Atta is always a joy - we love his enthusiasm for language, and his staunch attitude towards being gay in a hostile urban world. He read a new very poignant poem about an abusive relationship, which silenced the audience somewhat, but bounced back to the eternal crowd-pleaser - shagging!

Mr Atta's poem Morning Sex is one of my favourites from the past year or so of readings, and it went down just as well last night with the assembled Polari-ites:



You can download Dean's latest compilation album of poetry free at http://www.deanatta.co.uk/ - you know you want to...

Keith Jarrett opened the proceedings after the break (during which we took in the beautiful view from the rooftop St Paul's Pavilion), with a few of his youthful and energetic writings, which were fun and uplifting. But my dears - our next turn was one major mind-fuck!

Mark Wallis - who usually goes by the nom-de-plume of "I Am Cereal Killer" - with his bizarre face-paint is a "performance artist" and published poet. Although I don't think he was too well for last night's "performance", as he stumbled and slurred his way through some of his pithy autobiographical poetry about emotions, homosexuality, AIDS and his native Cornwall.

We were left feeling a little uncomfortable after that, so it was just as well we had the lovely and gorgeous lady lesbian poetess and glam diva of the poetry world Sophia Blackwell to finish off proceedings with a bang! Part burlesque, part drama queen and wholly brilliant! You can listen to some of Sophia's work on her MySpace profile page.

Another fabulous night - can it really be Polari's third birthday next month? How time flies... An unmissable event, and one I always really look forward to! We have our tickets booked already.

Polari