Will Young is a pop star, who first became famous as the victor of the popular ITV talent show, Pop Idol in 2002. Now in his early forties, this short memoir traces the course of his life so far as a gay man. It is an interesting companion piece to Tom Allen’s 2020 memoir, No Shame as well as to the recent Channel 4 drama, It’s A Sin. Being born gay is not easy for anyone and despite a relatively supportive and comfortable background, Young has had his struggles growing up in the 1980s and 1990s and again as a famous person in the 21st century where he has occasionally encountered public attacks from the likes of the Daily Mail, DJ Chris Moyles and Jeremy Clarkson amongst others. But this is a very good book and very readable too. I was slightly less keen on the later stages of the book detailing his mental health struggles of the last decade. I don’t doubt that these were very significant and difficult experiences for hìm at that time. However, in writing about them, he generally adopts a therapy-like way of writing which is less accessible than the rest of the book. But overall, this is a very compelling and readable portrait of what it means to be a gay man in the Britain of the year late 20th and early 21st century.
Book review: To Be A Gay Man, by Will Young. Published by: Virgin Digital.
It’s 1981 and a group of young people are on their way to embark upon a new life in London in Russell T. Davies’ new five-episode Channel 4 drama.
Escaping a fairly loveless home environment on the Isle of Wight, Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander) is soon having the time of his life in the capital. Good-looking and confident, he is free to enjoy the delights of the capital’s thriving gay scene at night while pursuing bit parts as an actor in the likes of Doctor Who during the day. He soon befriends Jill (Lydia West, who appeared in Davies’ previous drama, Years and Years), who is also hoping to tread the boards. Colin (Callum Scott Howells), meanwhile, is gay too, like Ritchie, but a tamer character who has moved from Wales to work at a tailor’s. He is soon being forced to politely resist unwanted sexual overtures from his married male boss. Finally, Roscoe (Omari Douglas), another live wire, has been forced to flee his family home after his family threaten to send him to Nigeria because of his homosexuality.
All of these characters and a number of others soon converge and become friends in London. As the series moves through the next decade, all also see their lives seriously impacted by the spread of AIDS.
This is clearly very serious subject matter indeed and it would be wrong to pretend that watching It’s A Sin isn’t a powerful, hard-hitting, harrowing and overall, very moving experience. At the same time, Davies doesn’t forget to show that at least initially life for these twentysomethings as they go out, get jobs, make friends, live together, go clubbing, get drunk, go on the pull and generally experience adult life for the first time is lots of fun. This is something many of us will be able to relate to regardless of whether we are young or old, gay or straight or can remember the 1980s ourselves or not. The soundtrack is also amazing. Putting 1980s songs in a TV drama is hardly an amazingly original idea but songs such as Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy, Freedom by Wham!, REM’s Everybody Hurts and yes! It’s A Sin by the Pet Shop Boys (many although not all of them performed by artists who whether we knew it or not at the time were gay themselves) are deployed very effectively.
It’s easy to forget how far social attitudes have progressed in the thirty or forty years since the show’s 1980s setting. None of the main characters feel able to tell their families they are gay with the end result that when many of them do contract AIDS their families discover that their children are both homosexual and potentially mortally ill almost simultaneously. Initially, there is a terrifying mystery about the disease. One fairly minor character goes to his grave early on, apparently at a complete loss as to why he and his partner seem to have both contracted cancer at the same time. Another is so ashamed by his condition that he won’t tell anyone he has it. Following his death, his family not only cover-up the cause of his demise but attempt to destroy any evidence that he ever existed. Even as liberal and well-intentioned character as Jill is sufficiently worried about her AIDS-infected friend drinking out of one of her mugs that she destroys it afterwards. The information simply wasn’t available then.
The myth that AIDS exclusively affected only the homosexual community persisted for far too long to, hindering progress partly because many authority figures clearly felt many victims to some extent deserved their fate simply because they were that way inclined. In one memorable sequence, talking straight to camera, Ritchie articulates his own reasons for believing the AIDS virus to be a myth dreamed up by a homophobic media. Such conspiracy theories, of course, foreshadow those who persist in claiming in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t exist today. If anything, although we know Ritchie’s argument is no less bogus than they are, Ritchie does present a better argument for his disease not existing than they do.
Ultimately, with an excellent supporting cast including Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Fry, Tracy Ann Oberman, Keeley Hawes and Shaun Dooley, It’s A Sin is a worthy companion piece to Russell T. Davies’s earlier series Queer as Folk and Cucumber. January is barely over yet this may well prove to be the best British TV drama of 2021 along with Russell T. Davies’s greatest ever masterpiece.
All episodes of It’s A Sin can be viewed now on All 4. It is also being broadcast n Channel 4 every Friday at 9pm.
Tom Allen is well-established as one of Britain’s best-known comedians. Incredibly camp and always impeccably dressed in a tweed suit, Allen’s quick wit and sharp tongue has made him the ideal choice to front high end reality TV spin-off shows like The Apprentice…You’re Fired! and The Great British Bake Off: Extra Slice. He also presents the popular Like Minded Friends podcast with his friend, comedian, Suzi Ruffell and can often be seen on panel shows like Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and QI.
As this winning memoir confirms, Allen’s camp TV persona is no act. He was an unusual child and in his own words was “always forty-six years old.” He, in fact, won’t turn forty-six until 2029 (he was born in 1983), but with his unusual, distinctive dress sense, interests and manner made him stand out. Unlike most 1990s teenagers (indeed, unlike most teenagers from any decade), he avoided the traditional adolescent activities preferring to organise dinner parties for middle-aged women while pretending to be a butler.
Even his accent is a mystery. Although not exactly Received Pronunciation, it is definitely plummy. But it seems to have come from nowhere. He apparently sounds nothing like anyone in his family and went to school with fellow comedian Rob Beckett and former EastEnders actor, Charlie Clements, neither of whom sound anything like him either. “If the Daily Mail built a theme park, it would probably look a bit like Bromley,” he says of his birthplace, although as of the current Lockdown, he still lives there with his ageing parents.
(A surprising number of famous people, in fact, come from or have lived in Bromley including H.G. Wells, Enid Blyton, David Bowie, Jack Dee and Pixie Lott. But that’s another story).
“When I was sixteen,” he recalls. “I dressed in Victorian clothing in a bid to distract from the fact that I was gay.” Twenty years on, he recognises this strategy was “flawed” and indeed, had less to do with trying to do with attempting to distract attention away from his (presumably very obvious) homosexuality than it did attempting to escape from the difficult realities of his daily situation altogether.
This is a very funny book, shedding light on what, in reality, clearly must have been a very unhappy period for Allen. For all his occasional on stage bitchiness, he is clearly a very sensitive person as well as a good writer. Though the book takes us up to the present, there is relatively little about his comedy career. The best bits of the book chronicle his awkward teenaged experience in exquisite detail.
By coincidence, Tom Allen’s memoir comes hot on the heels of To Be A Gay Man, by the musician, Will Young, who is around four years older than Allen. As with that volume, Allen’s enjoyable book should provide an invaluable source of inspiration to any young gay readers, hopefully ensuring that feel able to advance to a position where they feel “no shame” themselves.
No Shame, by Tom Allen. Published by Hodder and Stoughton.
Forty or so years ago, an extraordinary thing happened. One of the leading political figures of the day was arrested, charged and tried for conspiracy to murder. The BBC drama A Very English Scandal, based on the recent non-fiction book by John Preston, brings the story of Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott vividly to life on screen. Russell T. Davies, the creator of Queer as Folk and architect of the 21st century revival of Doctor Who, presents the story with clarity, humour, but also the appropriate level of drama.
He is helped immeasurably by a near perfect cast. Hugh Grant, for so long the victim of a bullying press, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, his credentials as an actor of both depth and maturity. He captures perfectly the upper-class charm of the dynamic, hat-wearing old Etonian, Thorpe, who between 1967 and 1976 was amongst the most appealing leaders the Liberal Party ever had. Privately, however, Thorpe (who appeared for a short while in 1974 to be close to achieving a position of influence in a coalition government) was a deeply flawed individual, drawn to extreme solutions when he feared his personal life was erupting into scandal. Grant captures this dark side of Thorpe too.
Ben Whishaw is also great as Norman Scott, the troubled young man who came perilously close to becoming the victim in the farcical dog shooting incident on Dartmoor. In court, the real Scott was grossly mistreated by both Thorpe and a legal process skewed against him by the unscrupulous but brilliant lawyer, George Carman QC (played here by the excellent Adrian Scarborough) and the absurdly biased and pro-establishment judgement of presiding judge, Sir Joseph Cantley. In a notorious eccentric summing up, later expertly parodied by comedian. Peter Cook, Cantley said of Scott, “He is a crook, a fraud, a sponger, a whiner and a parasite…But, of course, he could still be telling the truth.”
Scott deserved better. This breezy, watchable and highly compelling drama directed by Stephen Frears and packed with star turns from a cast which includes Alex Jennings, Patricia Hodge, Michelle Dotrice, Monica Dolan and Jason Watkins at least goes some way towards redressing the balance. It is one of the best of the year so far.
As of May 2015, there are more openly gay members of parliament than there have ever been before. But how many are still “in the closet”? And what about those who kept their sexuality under wraps in the past, perhaps before the homosexual act itself was legalised in 1967?
Michael Bloch’s book is extremely gossipy but also highly informative revealing that far more of the British politicians who shaped the last century were gay than was commonly thought. In some cases, it was just a phase: Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland’s very intense early relationship fizzled out into mere friendship by the time both had began their careers as Labour politicians. They later became fierce rivals. The still homosexual Crosland was bitterly disappointed when the now keenly heterosexual Jenkins was appointed Chancellor in 1967. Jenkins felt the same when Crosland became Foreign Secretary seven years later. Jenkins left the Callaghan…
Since the Second World War, two third party leaders have been in a position to determine the balance of power in a Hung Parliament. Five years ago, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg secured his party a position in government but ultimately failed to achieve a proper cabinet position for himself or any of his party’s aims in office.
Liberal leader Jeremy Throrpe in February and March 1974 antagonised his Liberal colleagues (notably Chief Whip David Steel) by negotiating with Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath without consulting them first. Thorpe ultimately rejected the trappings of office and emerged with his reputation enhanced.
Few politicians would wish to emulate Jeremy Thorpe today, however, as Michael Bloch’s excellent biography reminds us. Indeed one wonders if the real reason future Liberal Democrat leader Jeremy Ashdown changed his name to “Paddy” was to avoid comparisons with the earlier Liberal? Today Thorpe, who died last December, is chiefly remembered for scandal and for being accused and found not guilty in a notorious murder plot. It was one of the biggest political stories of the Seventies and totally destroyed Thorpe’s career. Although only fifty in 1979, he was practically invisible for the last thirty-five years of his life which were also made worse by Parkinson’s disease.
The contrast with Thorpe’s earlier days could not be more striking. Thorpe was a dazzling figure who seems to have charmed almost everyone he met . Born in 1929, he joined the Liberals at the time of their great post-war crisis when they came close to extinction around 1950. Thorpe nevertheless determined to one day be Prime Minister, used his boundless energy to secure a seat in parliament in 1959 and obtained the party leadership while still in his thirties in 1967. As leader, he was always popular with the public (seeing the party through blows the 1970 election which coincided with the death of his first wife Caroline in a car accident) and highs (almost getting into government in 1974).
Ultimately, it was Thorpe’s compulsive risk-taking and his numerous homosexual liaisons which proved his downfall.
“Give us a child until he is seven and we will give you the man”.
This attitude behind this Jesuit mantra prevails throughout this science fiction novel by the Mormon author Orson Scott Card. Set in a far future in an environment where humanity is under threat from a Starship Troopers-style alien menace named Buggers (yes, really), the novel sees the child Ender Wiggin recruited as a cadet at the Battle School
We then see him go through the dehumanising effects of military training. Each chapter begins with a dialogue between two of Ender’s recruiters through whom we become aware that Ender is, in fact, something akin to a military genius.
It is an odd book, not least because so many of the main characters seem to be incredibly advanced young children. Enders’s brother and sister, for example, rather bizarrely achieve a position of political dominance back on Earth through the internet despite still being in early childhood.
First written in 1985 (and updated substantially by Card since then to take into account the collapse of the USSR) and should make a good film when it is released in the UK late in October 2013, perhaps ranking alongside other decent sci-fi movies of 2013 such as Oblivion, Elysium and Gravity.
Sadly, Card – unlike his fellow Mormon author Twilight’s Stephanie Meyer – may have harmed the film’s prospects by revealing his homophobic views to the world. Mitt Romney woudl presumably give Card the thumbs up for this but few others will.
This is a shame. Perhaps it is unsurprising Orson Scott Card decided to name his villains “Buggers”.
But there is little to offend anyone in this novel.
Most people now recognise that gay people should enjoy the same right to a happy and loving marital relationship as heterosexual couples. Yesterday, most MPs agreed.
Had Chris Huhne’s parliamentary career lasted slightly longer he would have got to vote on the issue too. But perhaps, in retrospect, he was not the most qualified figure to pass judgement on issues relating to marriage.
The arguments against the gay marriage proposal largely articulatred by the Immoral Minority aka the dimmer half of what used to be known as the Silly Party (the Tories) are easy to dismiss:
The new law redefines marriage! Why yes, it does. Words and concepts have been redefined and reinterpreted throughout all time, as there meanings have changed. So what?
It’s a waste of time: This argument is deployed any time anyone opposes anything, usually on the grounds that it “distracts from economic situation.” Trust me, the economy won’t be affected one jot by this. The fox hunting ban hardly wrecked the economy either.
We already have civil partnerships: A better argument. But this just isn’t the same as marriage is it?
What about babies? Oddly, some argued that the marriage process is dependent on the possibility that the couple might subsequently reproduce. As this presumably also exempted and many disab;led people from marriage, this bizarre argument was sensibly ignored by most.
Where will it all end? Another familiar one: will this lead to polygamy, three way marriages, dogs marrying cats? etc. NO.
The only annoying thing is that we owe this historic change to David Cameron, the leader of the traditionally homophobic bunch who tried to ban “gay propaganda” in schools and not to the traditionally more sensible Labour Party.
On the plus side, Cameron is clearly a better man than most of his members: he seems to have hopelessly split his party in the process.
Chris Hallam's World View 