The Tom boys

This glut of new Toms on the acting scene makes one think any young actor starting out should change his name to Tom. Early Toms were Tom Courtenay and singer Tom Jones and Tom Wilkinson. Then we had that run of posh actors (Benedict, Eddie, Damian), while Tom Hardy was on the rise, getting his kit off a lot and getting covered in tattoos as he essayed various hard men, culminating in the two Krays last year (LEGEND) and taking on the MAD MAX mantle as well as leaving Leonardo in the wilderness in THE REVENANT .... no doubt he has more of the same lined up this year. 

Meanwhile, Tom Daley dived, Toms Hanks and Cruise became veterans, Tom Hollander kept being busy, being DOCTOR THORNE and joining Tom Of The Year, Hiddleston in THE NIGHT MANAGER. Hiddles also had HIGH RISE, a film on Hank Williams and currently back in superhero mode (THOR) after his summer romance with Taylor Swift. 

Now there is Tom Hughes - Albert in the new hit British series VICTORIA, we have not quite got used to him yet; Tom Sturridge is getting the breaks too (THE HOLLOW CROWN, Sgt Troy in the recent FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD), and Tom Riley seems the latest Tom on the block (DA VINCI'S DEMONS, THE COLLECTION). 
Tom Colley was also eye-catching as the Italian fisherman in the recent revival of THE JUDAS KISS. 
Then there's playwright Tom Stoppard, and singer Tom Chaplin from Keane back in the limelight. Meanwhile, Tom Bradby reads the London ITV news, and more Tom actors are Tom Ellis and the busy Tom Goodman-Hill.
Meanwhile Tom Ford has a highly-praised new film NOCTURNAL ANIMALS coming up at the LFF and opening here shortly. Thats about 20 Toms ....

Summer re-views: beach boys

A wet Saturday as summer slips away from us - here in the UK at any rate. How about some beach boy pix to refresh our memories ..... bring on Tom, Tab, Guy, Alain, Rory, Jeff, Fabian and all the rest ....
Alain in PLEIN SOLEIL, and that 1930s nifty swimsuit for THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE. 

Thats Guy Madison on the beach, then Rory Calhoun and Jeff Hunter, Tyrone Power with Cesar Romero, Farley Granger, Tab, Fabian, Troy and Sandra go off to A SUMMER PLACE, and lets end with Tom Daley on the beach at Rio before the Games.... go Tom. 
Well, Tom didn't qualify for the final 12 - these things happen on the day - but hopefully the poster boy and media star will return again for Tokyo in 4 years time .... 

Rio 2016

We are enjoying the Rio olympics as much as the London ones in 2012.. Lots of other associated programmes on here too, like that enjoyable trawl through "The Girl From Ipanema" story with lots of Jobim footage - I have had to dig out the CDs, and of course THAT MAN FROM RIO and OSS 117 LOST IN RIO.

The oiled up Tonga athlete Pita Taufatofua was the star of the opening ceremony, and the synchronised diving was as jaw-dropping as ever. Good to see Tom and Dan making the bronze - the Chinese of course will continue to be unstoppable, but we have Tom's solo diving coming up next week, and the fascinating Triathlon too, with those amazing Brownlee brothers. They swim, cycle and then run, run, run ..... Adam Peaty, Chris Mears & Jack Laugher (below) and more amazed and struck gold too. Max Whitlock getting two golds in two hours. Bravo!

We are in awe too of the Brownlee brothers Alistair, 28 and Jonny 26 - first and second again in the Triathlon, in that brutal gruelling Rio heat - just as they were in London 4 years ago (when Jonny got bronze, now its silver). How do they do it? - of course they train and train but still ... Thebrothers shared a touching moment at the end of the race as they collapsed and hugged on the finishing line, after that swim in the choppy Atlantic and then that long cycle race over the hills of Rio.

Gay Brit pop in the '80s .... hit that perfect beat, boy

What a gay week on BBC's Radio 2: first, an hour long documentary on gay British pop in the '80s with all the usual suspects, Boy George and co, but focused mainly on that song that meant so much to us: "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat, led by Jimmy Sommerville. Jimmy has done several versions over the years, as mentioned here before, but it really spoke to us back in 1984 with that simply but oh so catchy hook, which they followed by the equally good "Why?" -  the video for "Smalltown Boy" is equally a time capsule of life in the 80s then.  Their album AGE OF CONSENT was essential too, and their following hits plus Jimmy with The Communards. I spent so much of the late '80s listening to them and The Pet Shop Boys as my then disk jockey partner Rory (1960-1996) played them a lot in the clubs in Brighton and Portsmouth.

The '80s were a tough time for the gays, as the gutter press demonised them in the age of Aids, as people like Kenny Everett and Russell Harty were hounded to their deathbeds, and later in the '90s, as boyband members like Stephen Gately of Boyzone had to 'come out' before the tabloids exposed them, and then found that nobody cared - like now when guys like Tom Daley, Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott, Russell Tovey, or Zachery Quinto, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Groff in the States can come out and still keep their careers while the senior gays like Sir Ian, Simon Russell Beale, Sir Antony Sher, Sir Jacobi and co are still at the top of the league - a long way from back in the 1950s when Sir Gielgud was arrested but also found theatre audiences were not bothered ....   

Of course British pop always had a big gay element right back from the days of Larry Parnes and his stable of rockers - only Billy Fury was the real talent - then Brian Epstein with The Beatles, and laterly producers like Simon Napier Bell (Wham!'s mastermind - his book "Black Vinyl White Powder" details it all),  high energy maestro Ian Levine, and Nigel Martin-Smith who put Take That together knowing exactly what the marked wanted ... but then suddenly the boys were not hiding in the closet any more as pop poppets like Will Young and Joe McElderry threw caution to the winds and emerged from those closets into the daylight. 

I loved "Smalltown Boy" from the start though it did not really apply to me: I did not leave home because I was not loved, on the contary - but I was 18 in 1964 and wanted to be in London, not in a small town on the west coast of Ireland .... of course now I love going back there, and will be relocating there in a year or two. Take it away, Jimmy - who I saw around town a lot back then, in London and in Brighton - good to see he is still here and still working ...

Then, also this week, the BBC gave us a 4 part, 4-hour long series on The Pet Shop Boys, tying in with their new album SUPER, covering Neil and Chris looking back on their 30 year career, with fascinating comments (2 more programmes next week, one by the fab Frances Barber, who starred in their 2000 show CLOSER TO HEAVEN) and the boys are on Graham Norton's show tomorrow, on Good Friday. The following week's Norton show features that other great '80s survivor Holly Johnson (of Frankie Goes To Hollywood) with Take That's Gary Barlow - once so big but now tarnished by tax avoidance scandal - promoting their new single written by Gary. We will always have a soft spot for Holly's Frankie hits, and Gary's Take That promos like "Pray" and "Never Forget". Perfect pop.  PS: What has George Michael been up to lately? - while Boy George queens it up on BBC's talent show THE VOICE, while Markus Feehily (the gay one in Westlife) is now making interesting solo music as well, very dark deep house. Then there is Mika and Tiga and all the others ... 

Of course before Take That became a respectable stadium act their early videos are a scream now, as canny gay manager Martin-Smith had them prancing around in camp outfits (just like early Boyzone when managed by Louis Walsh!) like that early one "Do What You Like" where they end up naked with jelly smeared on their bums - outrageous! Comedian Peter Kay had a lot of fun with that in his incarnation as transgender X-Factor winner Geraldine McQueen (from Dungannon, Northern Ireland) with his "The Winner's Song" written by Gary Barlow - Simon Cowell must have been livid!. Geraldine and the boys spoofed it all again in their hilarious concert clip here: 

Francois, Francoise, Charlotte, Catherine, David, Tom

A relaxing Sunday with warmer weather, the newspapers and some interesting stories on favourites of ours, before cooking dinner and later unwinding with a drink at hand, for that 1940s wartime saga HOME FIRES ....

An interesting interview with Francois Ozon (right) in "The Irish Times" where the gay French director talks about his new film THE NEW GIRLFRIEND (about to open here) and has some interesting comments, particularly on those films of his featuring women like Deneuve or Rampling. As the paper's feature (by Tara Brady) says: "8 WOMEN brought together France’s grandest dames for a 1950s-set musical murder mystery; 5x2 plays five key scenes from a divorced couple’s relationship backwards; SWIMMING POOL exuded Hitchcockian menace as Charlotte Rampling became a young woman’s reluctant caregiver and voyeur; POTICHE saw Catherine Deneuve as a rejected trophy wife, lead her husband’s employees to rebel.

Many of Ozon’s films are smaller, more tightly focused; TIME TO LEAVE sees a young man push everyone away as he enters the final stages of terminal cancer".

"Charlotte Rampling is one of many actors who have returned again and again to the troupe of Ozon players. Others include Ludivine Sagnier and Catherine Deneuve.

“There is a lot of pleasure in working with women,” says Ozon. “Very often actresses are more pleasurable and easier to work with than men. There are some actors I work with and once is enough. But there are others, like Charlotte, who have a depth and maturity.”

What is it, I wonder, about French cinema’s love affair with a certain kind of British woman, such as Rampling, Jane Birkin and Kristin Scott Thomas.

“In France we have a fascination with foreign actresses,” Ozon says. “One of the most popular French actresses of the 1970s was Romy Schneider who was German. And then there are the English actresses who fell in love with French men and come to France. They often tell me the French offer very good parts as a woman gets older. In England or America they get to play the mother or the grandmother.”

Ozon has had Hollywood offers since Swimming Pool became a global sensation, in 2003. But the director is not for turning.

“In America, film is not about art or culture. It’s a business. So they make movies for teenagers, because it’s easier. And they have a different way of working. The producer does not direct the film, but they do make all of the decisions. The director is a technician more than an artist. I don’t want to work that way. I don’t feel the necessity of losing my soul.” 

Charlotte Rampling herself is interviewed too in "The Daily Telegraph" - 'Le Legende' at 69 now feels she has "the face she has earned". Like Catherine Deneuve her career spans 50 years and she still works now, turning down scripts she does not like - "it has to be something that makes me want to leave the house, where I can stay very happily with my books and my cats". Presumably, like playing a barrister in that second series of BROADCHURCH for British television recently (we loved the first series, the second less so... ). She has come a long way from the 'partying Sixties It-girl' with The Look, as exemplified by her breakthrough film GEORGY GIRL in 1966. Interesting to see that this year she is starring with Tom Courtenay (another Sixties actor in it for the long haul) in 45 YEARS, by Andrew Haigh (LOOKING tv series, WEEKEND) which is an unsettling portrait of a marriage. . She credits Ozon and working with him on UNDER THE SAND as revitalising her and re-realising her potential as a cinema actor. She is as busy now as she has ever been: "I'm working because good work is coming"

Catherine Denueve, another Ozon regular, could probably say the same. Her STANDING TALL was the opening film at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and as the Times put it: "Deneuve adds punch to delinquent drama", where she is the steely judge in this gritty downbeat drama. The critics were not sneering, as at last year's opener GRACE OF MONACO. Let's hope London sees this new Deneuve drama before too long .... I found Catherine hilarious in Ozon's POTICHE with her portly housewife out jogging and communicating with nature, before taking over the family factory to avert a strike and then going into politics, and her dancing with the even portlier Depardieu a delicious treat, with that Seventies background, and the increasingly gay son (Jeremie Rennier). See Ozon label for reviews on all these, his serious TIME TO LEAVE is devastating too. 

BBC4 ran a fascinating documentary as well on French popular song - chanson - where a very spry Petula Clark, now 82, took us through the golden years of French popular song from Edith Piaf and Charles Trenet, including Petula's own French career, to that great early Sixties era, with Francoise Hardy and the others. Francoise was the Face of the early sixties, her Vogue 4-track EPs were the first records I bought, even before The Beatles. Utter bliss then. Francoise too is still going and still singing though the hair is short and silver grey now. 

Tom joins the Hockney set

David Hockney is back in the news too with a new exhibition at the Annely Juda Gallery in London, with some fascinating new paintings. The artist, now 77, is selling that house in Bridlington  in East Yorkshire, where his assistant Dominic Elliott died in 2013. His new work includes 'The Potted Palm' - below - which include Olympic diver Tom Daley and his partner scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black, who are now part of the Hockney circle, David said he likes Tom and praised his coming out last year, of course Tom does lots of diving into those blue pools, but not making "a bigger splash"! Hockney - subject of many posts here, see label - recently bemoaned the demise of what he calls Bohemia, the lifestyle once led by gays, who now want to get married, settle down and have children - he finds them boring and conservative, wanting to lead ordinary lives ... He now goes to bed at nine, and don't go to parties or films as he has got increasingly deaf. He continues to work though, as he says "When I'm painting, I feel 30. Of course I have no plans to retire, artists don't retire. So I'll go on until I fall over, dying ideally at the easel". One somehow feels that other blonde painter who smoked endlessly - Joni Mitchell, maybe still in a coma and also in her Seventies, would somehow agree. Hockney also said in another recent interview that "maybe" the love of his life was Gregory Evans, his 62 year old manager, they were lovers for over a decade but have worked together for 40 years - not Peter Schlesinger of A BIGGER SPLASH then ... The new paintings are certainly fascinating and sees Hockney going in a new direction. 

Binge on boxsets ...

Having a binge with boxsets seems to be the new way to watch television - not just an episode a week any more. and now that Netflix can put whole series on-line, one can certainly binge on them - I am rationing my GRACE & FRANKIE episodes (as per recent post), and got their HOUSE OF CARDS reboot on dvd. Has television ever been better? Despite all the crap stuff, there are some terrific series out there, our Sky Atlantic being particularly good (like HBO with THE NORMAL HEART and other dramas). PENNY DREADFUL is particularly stunning - amazing sets and gothic horror mixing in Frankenstein's monster, Dorian Gray, bloody vampires, werewolves and other assorted Victorian nightmares - Eva Green, Rory Kinnear (a touching monster, left), Timothy Dalton, Billie Piper, Helen McCrory and upcoming Douglas Hodge and Patti Lupone will keep one watching .... not for the faint-hearted! I have not even got around to GAME OF THRONES or BREAKING BAD or ...

THE AFFAIR looks like another must see, after recent stunning series like HAPPY VALLEY and the delicious Sky sitcom by Ruth Jones: STELLA  - now on Series 4 with those inhabitants of Pontyberry in deepest Wales. More please ! Hard to believe Ruth's Stella was also GAVIN & STACEY's Nessa and LITTLE BRITAIN's Myfanwy (with Daffydd, the only gay in the village) and played Hattie Jacques too. Actress and writer Ruth, right, with Patrick Baladi. 

Incidentally, I will have to catch the new MAD MAX: FURY ROAD this week, I need a big screen experience with an action movie everyone seems to love .... I will probably be seeing it in 3D!

Red carpet season

We have had the Golden Globes and soon it will be BAFTA time and then the lead-up to The Oscars. The big movies are all playing (though a few have not opened here in the UK yet). I now see they are creating new posters for THE IMITATION GAME, (highlighting its 9 BAFTA, 8 Academy Award and 3 SAG nominations) as it may have peaked too early, following the success of Eddie Redmayne at the Globes. It now seems one's moral duty to honour the Turing film to make up for how he was mistreated. 
The battle lines seemed to be drawn: which posh boy playing a tortured genius would succeed: Benedict Cumberbatch as gay code-breaker Alan Turing or Redmayne as crippled Stephen Hawking? Cumberbatch seemed to be in the lead, with his nuanced performance and Turing has practically been canonised of late, also its Benedict's first lead movie role after his TV SHERLOCK and all those other roles. Talk about an actor being on a roll 

.... then THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING came along (I have only seen the trailer as yet) with a flashier role for its lead actor. The Academy of course loves actors playing serious disabilities (MY LEFT FOOT et al) or losing or gaining weight, and it seems a more emotionally involving story of Hawking's first marriage, as opposed to the more repressed Turing (whose gayness is not depicted in any serious way). THE IMITATION GAME though has the Harvey Weinstein clout behind it, so we shall see.  It now seems of course that Turing and Hawking may cancel each other out (as Bette's Margo Channing and Gloria's Norma Desmond did in 1950) as Michael Keaton comes up fast on the comeback trail with a movie everyone is talking about too: BIRDMAN .... Among those who fell by the wayside: Timothy Spall in Mike Leigh's MR TURNER, and Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER. 

Freddie Fox - is he or isn't he?

Speaking of Jake, it is almost a decade on from BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Actors are still playing gay but now seem to be courting publicity by hinting or teasing that they may be or turn gay in real life ... step forward Freddie Fox, (actor son of actor Edward) - one of those actors (like Tom Hollander or Jude Law at one stage) who seems to play gay a lot - we saw him on stage a year or so ago as Bosie to Rupert Everett's Oscar Wilde in David Hare's THE JUDAS KISS (Theatre label) and a right petulant Bosie he was too, and he was in the recent PRIDE and now in a new tv series getting a lot of publicity, CUCUMBER, part of a new trilogy by QUEER AS FOLK creator Russell T Davies. QAF caused a sensation back in the '90s with its frank depiction of young gays in the Manchester 'gay village', whereas CUCUMBER focuses on older gay men. Freddie is one of the main younger characters here, another petulant young beauty who is rampantly bisexual. Freddie though, in not one but in several interviews (as in gay ATTITUDE magazine), keeps going on about how he has dated girls in the past but may conceivably fall in love with a man. Who the hell cares? Is this news? Acting is acting - 

This is the start of a latest interview, in today's INDEPENDENT with Patrick Strudwick :

Playing disabled – which sounds arrestingly offensive – has long been noted as a swift route to Oscar glory.

But now there is a new toy for actors: not just playing gay (Brokeback Mountain is 10 years old) but flirting with homosexuality off-camera. It is a new flow chart of orchestrated ambiguity, social-media wildfire, ratings and fame. Virtual, viral gayness.

This week, Freddie Fox, who flickers, resplendent, as the sexually omnivorous lust beacon in Channel 4’s new gay drama Cucumber, gave an interview straight from the Hedge Your Bets textbook.

“I wouldn’t wish to go, ‘I am this or I am that,’ because at some time in my life, yes I’ve had girlfriends, but I might fall in love with a man,” he said. “The majority of my life to date has been as a straight man. But who knows what will happen next?

Hollywood of course wants to keep its actors in the closet and their toxic attitudes resurfaced this week in the body of Billy Crystal, so embraced by Tinseltown that he has hosted the Oscars nine times. Crystal spoke of gay television characters “pushing it a little too far”, and of their sex scenes: “I hope people don’t abuse it and shove it in our faces.” 

Which leads us back to Freddie Fox. ..... He would have invited much less cynicism about his motivation if he had said: “Yes, I fantasise sexually about men.” Or if he had actually owned the label bisexual. That he didn’t leaves three possibilities: he is merely playing another part, that of a keep-’em-guessing heart-throb; he is a coward; or he does not understand that until bigotry ends, using terms such as gay and bisexual to come out, to stake our identity, to become a visible social force, is the single most potent weapon we have. And one significantly tougher, braver and in-your-face than a blasted cucumber.

Meanwhile out gay actors like Andrew Scott, Ben Whishaw  or Russell Tovey (or Americans Matt Bomer or Zachery Quinto) just get on with acting without having to give interviews to discuss their sexuality and how it may change; Olympic diver Tom Daley comes out perfectly on YouTube and can now get on with his training (as fans fantasise on his relationship with Dustin Lance Black) and actors matter-of-factly disrobe in the current revival of MY NIGHT WITH REG, which as per my previous posts on it is about that group of gay friends in the 1980s who experience the ravages of time, Aids, loss and betrayal, which is both laugh out loud and heartbreaking. 

Summer reads: Carol, Arthur, John, more Mapp & Lucia ...

Some fabulous summer reads, for dipping into, or greedily reading from cover to cover, as per those new MAPP & LUCIA items!

First a couple of perfect show-business memoirs, and a terrific new biograpy on skating legend, John Curry, a story that resonates very strongly now that athletes and sports people can come out without fear, how different it was then....

AMONG THE PORCUPINES: Carol Matthau was one of those originals I had heard about from various sources (and yes, she was the original for Holly Golightly). How marvellous to find she penned an engaging memoir back in 1992. Copies are still available folks! Carol was one of those people like Lauren Bacall, Dirk Bogarde or Rock Hudson who knew just about everybody. Here is the choice dust-jacket blurb:

A celebrated original in both New York and Hollywood, Carol Matthau (nee Grace) epitomizes a kind of glamour not known today: wife of William Saroyan (twice) and Walter Matthau (still), lifelong friend of Gloria Vanderbilt and Oona O'Neill Chaplin; muse and confidante to some of the century's most renowned writers (James Agee, Kenneth Tynan and Truman Capote - who divined his Holly Golightly as they breakfasted together in front of Tiffany's windows). But just beneath the look-no-further glitter lie the unique wit, wisdom and charm forged from private tragedy, privilege and a deep, powerful knowledge of love.

In her inimitable voice - salty, sly, incisive, hilarious - Carol tells the tales of her extraordinary roller-coaster life: from a lonely childhood in Depression-era foster homes to a fairy tale adolescence as a Park Avenue debutante, from terrifying bouts with Saroyan to sweet trysts with Matthau; from the high-society fetes of the Forties to glitzy Hollywood dinner parties to the ultimate social spectacle - the Oscars.

Filled with delicious meditations, anecdotes, and portraits of friends (Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison, Maureen Stapleton, Carson McCullers, Richard Avedon, Isak Dinesen and others), this is a tour of the high life on the arm of the original blithe spirit. 

Well yes, today's celebrities have a lot to learn before they are as effortlessly stylish as Carol Matthau. She died in 2003, aged 78 (Walter had died in 2000), but leaves a marvellous story. Her affectionate portraits of Kay and Rex are perfect too and nicely compement the memoirs of Rex and Lilli Palmer. Its the kind of book one does not want to end (like Lilli Palmer's CHANGE LOBSTERS AND DANCE) or Simone Signoret's NOSTALGIA ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE). 

Arthur Laurents (THE WAY WE WERE for which he wrote the screenplay aired on tv here over the weekend) was of course cut from a different cloth. Waspish and difficult he seems to have been disliked by quite a lot. He too wrote a fascinating memoir - I quoted from it in my review of SUMMERTIME (see below). - covering Broadway and Hollywood in the Golden Age, when he was one of the high fliers. Laurents (1918-2011) lived to be 92, his writing credits include Hitch's ROPE (below, right - Hitchcock was intrigued by Laurents' relationship with Farley Granger), ANASTASIA, THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO (the play which SUMMERTIME was based on), a favourite of ours: BONJOUR TRISTESSE, THE WAY WE WERE and THE TURNING POINT and the books for WEST SIDE STORY and GYPSY, among others. 

He too was very well connected so I am looking forward to a good read;  he also won numerous awards and directed productions of LE CAGE AUX FOLLES. He knew Barbra Streisand from the start of her career, when she was in I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE, before FUNNY GIRL. She rang him shortly before he died, just as he was sitting down to Sunday breakfast, so he told her to call back later - she did, as she was trying to get a new production of GYPSY up and runnng, despite now being too old to play Mama Rose ...

Like Gore Vidal, he was also a prominent gay, having a relationship with Farley Granger in the '40s and '50s, and then a long lasting relationship with an actor, Tom Hatcher. 

Now, ALONE - The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry, by Bill Jones, a handsome new hardback, which just arrived today, I will be starting it right away. Curry seems a forgotten figure now, but in 1976 he skated to Olympic glory and overnight became world famous. He was awarded the OBE and showered with honours. Yet he remained a mystery to the world that had been dazzled by his gifts. 

Curry had changed his sport from marginal curiosity to high art. Men's skating was supposed to be muscular, not sensual and ambiguous like this. But with Olympic gold came the revelation of his secret as he informed the world that he was gay. In the extraordinary years which followed, Curry battled to transform skating into a theatrical sensation worthy of Nureyev. At his magnificent peak he brought The Royal Albert Hall and the New York Met to their feet (I saw one of his spectaculars about then with my pal Sally who was besotted about him). But behind his epic struggles lay a tortured, lonely man of labyrinthine complexity (wasn't it ever so?).

It is a story of childhood nightmares, sporting rivalries, homophobia, cold war politics, financial ruin and deep personal tragedy. Here is revealed the restless, impatient, often dark soul of a man whose words could lacerate, whose skating moved audiences to tears, and who - like many of his closest friends - died of AIDS, aged just 44, in 1994.

This chimes in with my reviews of THE NORMAL HEART and MY NIGHT WITH REG recently (gay interest label) and the fact that more Americans died of AIDS than in Vietnam. Also we realise now that today's actors and sporting stars have it easy when they come out with all the support they get on social media and from the press (Ben Whishaw had a big spread and cover story in last weekend's "Sunday Times", while Tom Daley and Ian Thorpe are the latest sports stars to come out to universal approval). How different it all was in the '70s ... Curry too had a secret relationship with actor Alan Bates (who visited him before he died), which shows how one could keep things under wraps in that pre-internet, pre-cellphone world. 

And now a return to Tilling, and the delightful books about MAPP & LUCIA, by E.F. Benson, and the television series (now on dvd) made in 1982 where Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne are perfection, as indeed are all the cast, as it captures that 1930s dreamworld where well to do people had domestic staff. It was filmed too at Rye, where Benson lived, as per my previous post on them, as the Mapp & Lucia label.  There were six book intially, but there are now four more, written in the style of Benson taking the characters forward through the war years and after. Indeed the latest one, AU RESERVOIR, kills them all off interestingly in old age, so I don't imagine there will be any more. 

LUCIA IN WARTIME and LUCIA TRIUMPHANT by Tim Holt are great reads, but LUCIA ON HOLIDAY and AU RESERVOIR by Guy Fraser-Sampson are simply too much. LUCIA ON HOLIDAY takes us to Italy, Lake Como to be precise, where the Mapp-Flints (thanks to a generous Majarajah) follow Lucia and Georgie to their luxury hotel, and Georgie - now with his opera singer muse Olga Braceley - becomes entranced with his superb, handsome new valet Francesco (who is not what he seems) with his addictive 'turksh' cigarettes. 
Real people are also written in, we get the famous writer and poet Gabriele D'Annunzio here, while AU RESERVOIR writes Noel Coward and John Gielgud into the story as they appear in several chapters, as Mapp tries (in vain of course) to prove that Lucia does not know them. How it is all worked out is simply too delicious for words. Perfect summer reading.

London theatre update ...

Two interesting new productions coming up, after recently seeing revivals of MOJO in the west end, and the hilarious ONCE A CATHOLIC up in the wilds of Kilburn High Road (see Theatre label). Fascinating to see Angela Lansbury at 88 back on the London stage, in a new production of Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT, which she played a year or two ago on Broadway with Rupert Everett (below), whom we liked here last year as Oscar Wilde in David Hare's THE JUDAS KISS - as per reviews at Theatre label. Madame Arcati is quite a physical role, if not a very big one, as played by Margaret Rutherford in David Lean's perfect film of the play in 1946. 

Angela of course has been a favourite of ours for a long time, as per label, in movies since 1944 - the year before I was born - and must have worked with just about everyone, from being mean to Judy Garland in THE HARVEY GIRLS in 1946, to co-starring with Tracy and Hepburn in STATE OF UNION in 1948, often playing much older than her years. In the '50s she co-starred in programmers with Randolph Scott and Tony Curtis, as well as with Danny Kaye in the still funny THE COURT JESTER, with the Harrisons (Rex and Kay Kendall) in Minnelli's THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE in 1958 - a firm favourite here, below - and with Sophia Loren and so many more, with Lee Remick in THE LONG HOT SUMMER in '58, Sondheim's ANYONE CAN WHISTLE in '64 and a tv movie THE GIFT OF LOVE ...then there was her trio of fearsome mothers, to Elvis Presley, Warren Beatty and Brandon de Wilde in another favourite, Frankenheimer's 1962 ALL FALL DOWN, which in turn led to her monster mother of zombie Laurence Harvey in Frankenheimer's enduring classic (no, I didn't want to see the remake) THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, also 1962. Frankenheimer had to convince Sinatra that she would be right for the role, despite being just 3 years older than Harvey!.

We saw her in London several times in the '70s - At the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) in Albee's ALL OVER in 1972, sharing the stage with Peggy Ashcroft as respectively the mistress and wife of a dying tycoon; she also did a GYPSY which I somehow missed, but we saw her at the BFI's National Film Theatre for one of those Q&A afternoon sessions, where she was a big draw. Luckily we got our tickets in time. I am sure everyone will want to see her now in BLITHE SPIRIT. I never watched her MURDER SHE WROTE series at the time, being too young for that kind of stuff and out a lot, but its amusing catching up with them now, if only for the amazing guest stars. She also lived in Ireland for some time - she is a perfect Irish granny in the 2004 film of Colm Toibin's THE BLACKWATER LIGHTSHIP.. We like also her hilarious turn in 1970's SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, an instant gay classic ! as per reviews at Angela, Michael York, gay interest labels).

Away from the west end, fringe theatre has another interesting offering: a new play at the small space upstairs at the famous Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. THE PASS by John Donnelly is about gay footballers who stay in the closet at what cost to themselves  .... a hot potato here, as hardly any main Premier League footballers have come out. It may be rather different for Tom Daley in the more rarified world of swimming and diving.  It has been getting good reviews and may be sold out. I can only see tickets on offer for day release at 9.00am on-line for Mondays, so we will try and get some for sometime in Feburary, it is currently only on until 1 March.

The attraction here is the lead is played by one of our best known out actors, Russell Tovey - one of THE HISTORY BOYS and busy on television (popping up in that new series LOOKING as well). 
It is about two footballers and how they change over 3 acts, also featuring the Tovey character's wife and an eager hotel bellboy. 

 I was last at the Theatre Royal Upstairs back in 1968, when 22, for a gayish production called A GAME CALLED ARTHUR, with another young actor going places - young Timothy Dalton, who in that small space, was right in front of me. He was one of the most stunning men ever - a few months later of course he opened in THE LION IN WINTER.

"It shouldn't be news, but it is ..."

Tom at last year's London Olympics

Tom makes a bigger splash... as now does Ian Thorpe, who had been denying he was gay for years ...

One man's face stares out from the front of most of today's front pages - the Olympic diver Tom Daley, who's announced he's in a relationship with a man. For a teenage sports person to do this in their own way on that YouTube video is quite a surprise.

The London 2012 bronze medallist's video statement was roundly applauded by the press, with THE INDEPENDENT's front page hailing him a "new gay icon". THE DAILY TELEGRAPH's Matt cartoon depicts the public- watching TV on the sofa - holding up boards awarding 9.5 and 10 out of 10.

Gay rugby international Gareth Thomas, writing in THE MIRROR says Daley will look back on Monday as "the best day of his life", while former international rugby referee Nigel Owens, who came out in 2007, calls it a "brave and wise decision" in THE GUARDIAN. 

THE SUN's showbiz editor Dan Wootton recalls coming out at the same age as Daley as "liberating and life-changing", while his paper announces the "war for tolerance is slowly being won in Britain". 

In her DAILY EXPRESS column, Vanessa Feltz says she ignored the story on the grounds that "people's sexual proclivities don't constitute news". However, THE DAILY MAIL recalls Daley's biographer being asked about the diver's sexuality before the London Olympics. 

THE INDEPENDENT's Owen Jones says "It shouldn't be news, but history shows it is". He contrasts Daley being "bombarded with love and support" with the fact that in 1983 "half of Britons believed same-sex relations were always wrong" but points out that LGBT people "are still abused, beaten up and yes, even killed in modern Britain". 

And Matthew Parris, in the very positive 3-page coverage in THE TIMES wishes he had the courage to come out as a younger man, writes that Daley will now face the forces of intolerance attacking him in a different way, by asking: "Why don't you just shut up about it?"

Political commentator Jo Phillips, reviewing the papers for the BBC News Channel, said it was "terribly sad" that someone should feel compelled to publicly reveal their sexuality. Her fellow guest, the Sunday Telegraph business editor Kamal Ahmed, said it was "still a big issue" in sports. But a sports marketing representative doubted his high earning potential would be damaged at all. "I think it may actually improve his marketability ... He's clearly addressed the situation before any tabloid stories emerge. We live in a modern world and sponsors and brands in general are much more flexible and broad in their views nowadays - in a world where companies are conscious of their image and their social responsibility they want to appeal to as broad a spectrum as possible". Gareth Thomas also says "To make the most of his ability a sportsman needs to focus on his sport, and that is so much easier if his personal life is happy and stable. So I can only see this helping Tom in the next phase of his career.". 

Daley though is still a teenager, at 19, sexuality can be very fluid at that age ... straight people do not have to announce they are heterosexual, but at least now Tom can continue with his diving and show business careers (his series SPLASH returns in the new year and is delicious fun as he trains "celebrities" how to dive), and presumably his sponsorship deals will continue. The pressure on sports people to be seen to be straight is still there, no main footballers have come out. An interviewer with Tom last year asked if he had a girlfriend - at a time when he was coping with his father's death, studying for his exams, swimming as much as he could every day and being the breadwinner for his family, yet they wanted him to have a girlfriend as well! At least now those tabloids cannot stalk him and try to get a story ... The main tabloid THE SUN is very positive about Tom now, whereas back in the bad old days of the '80s they probably hastened the early deaths of closeted tv presenters Russell Harty and Kenny Everett by hounding them even to their hospital beds ... now at least, young actors like popular Ben Whishaw (I am seeing him on the stage in MOJO this week) and Russell Tovey can also be open about their sexuality without it affecting their marketability, as well as singers/musicians like Frank Ocean and John Grant - unlike even a decade ago when gay boyband members trembled in the closet as the tabloids got George Michael, Stephen Gately and Will Young to out themselves before being rumbled... 

Meanwhile, the other good story, is that the bigots have been defeated again. Yes, Hazelmary and Peter Bull have lost their final appeal to the supreme court to overthrow that legal verdict, so they could continue to ban gay couples from their Hotel in Cornwall. The Bulls you see are so Christian that they simply cannot allow unmarried couples to share a bed under their roof. Somehow, I can't picture them asking any heterosexual couple who turn up to show their marriage certificate to prove that they are legally married in order to get a room. Now, poor Hazelmary and Peter will have to obey the law of the land, that if they are providing services at their establishment, they have to treat everyone the same, and not turn away those who do not fit in with their perceived beliefs, like they did with that gay couple who then took them to court. Another victory for common sense! The Bulls should realise they are running a business, that means obeying Health & Safety legislation and also legislation on equality. This couple should retire if they don't believe in equality - they couldn't turn away blacks or muslims, but they want to with gays? They end up looking very foolish and have drawn attention to the worst apsects of outdated 'religious' bigotry.