Over the past three decades the Swansea-born multi-BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated writer Russell T. Davies has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in television. With bold, groundbreaking series like Queer As Folk, Cucumber, A Very English Scandal, and Years and Years he has entertained and provoked audiences, creating some of the most memorable queer... Continue Reading →
Graphic Novel Review: Horny and High Vol. 1 by Ed Firth ★★★★
Ed Firth’s Horny and High is a dark series of tales of gay life in the city - sex, drugs and a pervasive sense of inevitable doom. It’s deliberately bleak, but undeniably compelling. Consisting of three stories, The Nightbus, Chillout and 🎵, this first volume is as visually stunning as it is depressing. The Nightbus... Continue Reading →
LFF 2020 LGBTQ+ Short Film Reviews
This year's London Film Festival has a larger-than-usual array of short films, all free to watch online in the UK until Sunday October 18th via BFI Player. Here are some favourites so far. Dungarees. Courtesy of LFF. Dungarees, written and directed by Abel Rubinstein, is a 5-minute 3-hander (now there's a phrase to conjure with)... Continue Reading →
64th BFI London Film Festival LGBTQ+ highlights
The 64th BFI London Film Festival (LFF) runs from October 7th-18th, and like many other festivals, Covid-19 restrictions mean that it's taking a different form this year. Given current circumstances the 2020 programme offers a reduced number of feature films, just 58, plus collections of short films and experimenta, but with an expanded reach across... Continue Reading →
BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival 2020 Cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
The British Film Institute has taken the difficult decision to cancel this year's LGBTQI+ Flare festival, two days before it was due to begin "due to the scale and complexity of running a large international film festival with filmmakers set to travel from across the world". In a statement released to media the BFI said,... Continue Reading →
Exhibition: Tom of Finland – Love and Liberation (House of Illustration, London) ★★★★
Tom of Finland (aka Touko Laaksonen) gets his first solo public exhibition in the UK with Love and Liberation at the House of Illustration. Featuring iconic images as well as previously unseen drawings from Tom of Finland Foundation’s collection, the exhibition forms part of the ongoing #TOMs100 celebration of his birth. Forty works on paper... Continue Reading →
34th BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival Highlights
The British Film Institute’s annual LGBTIQ+ film festival Flare is back this month with an exciting lineup of more than 50 feature films, including a few The Queer Review favourites. From March 18th-29th the festival will fill the BFI Southbank with queer cinema, discussions, parties and more. Things kick off with the Opening Night world... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: V&V (Vault Festival, London) ★★★1/2
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? When you go to see a play about the famed writer you really don't expect to be laughing at bad sexting and awkward nudes! V&V, an entertaining new two-hander currently playing at The Vaults in London, juxtaposes the literary love affair of Woolf and socialite Vita Sackville-West with the modern... Continue Reading →
Theatre Review: Coming Clean (Trafalgar Studios, London) ★★★1/2
Kevin Elyot’s debut play, Coming Clean, is back as the King's Head Theatre’s production returns to London’s West End. In pre-AIDS 80s Thatcherite Britain a gay couple Tony (Lee Knight) and Greg (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge) feel out the boundaries of their long-term relationship. Enter a young, sexy cleaner named Robert (Jonah Rzeskiewicz) who puts things to... Continue Reading →
Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest London – Nov 12 – 17th 2019 – Festival Highlights
Now in its ninth year Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest has established itself as a hugely anticipated fixture on any discerning queer filmgoer's calendar. Organised and run single-handedly by volunteers, it continues to offer a refreshing, daring and exciting alternative to some of the arguably more bland offerings of queer cinema elsewhere. Taking up... Continue Reading →