Ian Rickson on The Children's Hour

The director Ian Rickson talks to Carole Woddis about his hit West End production of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (Comedy Theatre), which stars Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss in a play that was scandalous on its first outing in 1934, and continues to be relevant. Recorded at Graeae.

You can listen to the interview here.

Find out more about the play on Wikipedia here.

Gay pride and prejudice in Kenya

Ishmael, an openly gay Kenyan man living in the small coastal town of Mtwapa, just north of Mombasa, says that many gay men have come to live here, attracted by its open-minded and liberal atmosphere.

But this image of the town has been overshadowed by an increasingly vocal and mobilised anti-gay campaign which has been garnering local support.

This comes after similar moves in neighbouring Uganda and Malawi.

Read the full article on BBC News here.

You can listen to Nina Robinson's report on the BBC World Service's Assignment programme from Thursday 17 June.

Middle C: A Year-Long Transition from Woman to Man

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation presents the first person documentary Middle C, in which Tristan R. Whiston chronicles his year-long gender transition from woman to man - through the change in his singing voice.

Tristan first performed as solo soprano at the age of six. Years of hard work led to an accomplished singing career.

But two years ago, Tristan decided to give up the most precious thing a singer has — the voice.

For a year, Tristan kept audio diaries, including milestones like the his first testosterone shot and the first time he shaved.

This documentary (made for Outfront) won the Premios Ondas award for International Radio and a silver medal at the New York Festivals.

Tristan has worked in Toronto’s independent theatre community for almost two decades. As an amateur boxer, he fought in over 40 bouts, competing provincially, nationally and internationally.

The documentary is available to listen and for download on the BBC World Service website here.

Writing The Century - "Once Upon A Time"

The BBC Radio 4 series that explores the 20th century through the diaries and correspondence of real people, returns with "Once Upon A Time" by Amanda Whittington - a "touching, coming of age drama set in 1979 based on the diary of a gay teenager living in a Nottinghamshire mining town".

Based on the 1979 diary of an 18-year-old miner's son, "Once Upon A Time" is the story of three teenage boys looking for love and acceptance, each hoping for their own happy, "walk into the sunset" ending.

Steven lives with his father, who knows and accepts his son is gay. The rest of the world isn't quite so accommodating. It's January 1st. Steven feels "confused, excited and frightened" at what 1979 might bring. His best friends are Chrissy and Gloria, two unemployed boys of the same age, who are living down the road as girls and dreaming of a glamorous new life.

All three live for the weekend, when they go to Nottingham's only gay club in search of adventure. The club is like Oz to their Kansas existence but it has its dark side. What Steven really wants is a loving relationship but, in his world, it seems like an impossible dream.

1979 was a vintage year for pop. In the first week of January alone, the Top 40 featured YMCA, Le Freak, I'm Every Woman, Hanging on the Telephone, Rat Trap and I Love the Nightlife. Such classic songs are the soundtrack to the young friends' turbulent lives.

The programme (in 5 parts) is aired this week at the end of Woman's Hour at 10.45am and again in the evenings at 7.45. It is available online for a limited period of time, here.

An officer and a gentle woman: the sex-change aristocrat

He led a life of privilege — game hunter, Guardsman and gentleman farmer. But Rhodri Davies had only one desire: to be a woman. So he changed his gender, lost his family, and found a new career as a nurse.

Read the full article in The Times here.

Miranda was also interviewed on BBC Radio 4's The Choice on Tuesday 5 November. The programme is available to listen online for the a week here.

Radio Drama: Turing’s Test

History Boys and Desperate Romantics star Samuel Barnett plays Second World War Enigma code breaker Alan Turing in a new radio drama part of a pioneering experiment between The Independent and award-winning production company Made in Manchester (MIM).

Turing’s Test is a fictional take on what might have been going through Turing’s mind in his dying moments after he’d eaten the apple laced with cyanide in 1954.

Just a few weeks ago, Alan Turing, often referred to as the father of modern computer science, received a posthumous apology from Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the persecution he suffered at the hands of the state for being gay in the 1950s.

In Turing’s Test, Alan is confronted by a ‘machine’ (played by Paul Kendrick – Consenting Adults, BBC4) about why he’s taken his life and about the future consequences of his pioneering computer work.

Roger Alton, Editor of The Independent, said: "Alan Turing was one of the great British heroes of the 20th Century, and whose death is a terrible scar on British justice. It is a great privilege to make this new drama available on The Independent website, and is part of the great tradition of innovation which has always characterised The Independent."

Turing’s Test is downloadable from The Independent website.

Turing’s Test is written by Phil Collinge and Andy Lord and stars Samuel Barnett as Alan Turing and Paul Kendrick as ‘the machine’. It is directed by Mike Heath and Neil Gardner and is produced by Ashley Byrne and Iain Mackness. It is a Made in Manchester/Dark Smile Production.

'Just Plain Sense' Interviews

A selection of recent LGBT-themed interviews of note in Christine Burn's podcast, Just Plain Sense.

- Half an Hour with Peter Tatchell

- Adopting – A trans perspective

- Half an Hour with Dr Stuart Lorimer

- Fascinating Adele: Part One and Part Two

Stonewall Riots Remembered

It is 40 years today since the Stonewall Riots took place. Jim Fouratt, later founder of the Gay Liberation Front, who was there, and Kenneth Partridge, who was on the London gay scene at the time, discuss the lasting significance of the riots with Evan Davies on Thursday's Today Programme.



Raymond Castro remembers taking part in the Riots and reflects for the Associated Press on 40 years of struggle here, while Peter Tatchell provides a UK perspective and deplores the LGBT community's retreat from the radicalism awaken by the Riots in the Guardian here. The New York Times also has a piece here.

Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Health Survey

The largest ever European survey into lesbian and bisexual women’s health, has just been released. The report, carried out by Stonewall and De Montfort University, reveals deeply disturbing levels of self-harm, substance abuse and exclusion from routine testing for cervical cancer.

Prescription for Change, a survey of 6,000 lesbian and bisexual respondents, suggests that health services are failing to identify specific healthcare needs among Britain's 1.8 million lesbian population. They are also failing to address specific mental health needs that many women still experience as a result of discrimination. The survey, the biggest of its kind ever conducted outside America, provides unique new statistics on the mental health, drinking and drug use of lesbian and bisexual women. Find out more here.

BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour discusses the findings with Ruth Hunt, co-author of the report and Head of Policy and Research at Stonewall and Dr Sarah Jarvis, spokesperson for women's health at the Royal College of GPs. You can listen to the programme here.

Copies of the full report and the accompanying case studies are available at www.stonewall.org.uk/lesbianhealth.

Losing Orton in the Archives

The tangled history of the papers of the playwright Joe Orton is unwoven by Dr. Matt Cook who reveals the extraordinary sources that survive on the writer's life and the perhaps even more extraordinary ones that remain stubbornly missing.

This recording is available here (right to save the file) and is part of the National Archives Podcast Series.

Warning: the following material may not be suitable for all listeners.

National Archives website

Half an Hour with Sue Sanders

Sue Sanders speaking at the Pre-launch of LGBT History Month 2008 at the Royal Courts of Justice - 26 November 2007

In the 1970’s school teachers could be dismissed if it became known that they were Gay or Lesbian. As a young lesbian teacher in those days Sue Sanders recalls that women were not even allowed to wear trousers. This was the environment in which the organisation “School’s Out” was founded in 1974.

In this in-depth Podcast interview Sue speaks at length about the organisation she has worked for during the majority of her adult life, the way things have changed in that time and the problem for the next generation of society when today’s teachers are not equipped to teach about diversity. She also talks about LGBT History Month, which she helped to found in 2004.

Part of a series of in-depth interviews with LGBT and other diverse personalities that make up the Podcast channel “Just Plain Sense” by Christine Burns. you can listen to the interview here.

Calpernia Addams: Widowed by Hate

Ten years ago, Private Barry Winchell's captivation for a young and beautiful show girl from Nashville Tennessee cost him his life. Two fellow soldiers decided that dating a trans woman made him gay and a candidate for summary execution in his sleep. US media and anti-hate crime campaigners decided it was easier to cast his trans girlfriend as a gay man too. And thus the die was cast for the erasure of two lives, and the nature of their love (Their story has been told in the 2003 film Soldier's Girl).

Ten years later Calpernia Addams has recovered from those horrific events and is making a rapid ascent as a US media personality. She was in Britain last week for the screening of her short film on media misrepresentation, Casting Pearls, and to attend a packed panel discussion at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Christine Burns was in London too and recorded an in-depth one to one interview with Calpernia where she talks about growing up, her spell in the US Navy, Barry’s murder, her blossoming career, and the representations of trans people in film and on TV.

You can listen to the interview here.

Calpernia Addams - Wikipedia
Calpernia's website

Interview With Trans Pioneer Mark Rees

Trans campaigner Christine Burns has been producing podcasts about trans people and events for the last eighteen months. Some of her recordings are designed to allow people to hear campaigning events and speeches which they couldn’t catch in person; on other occasions she features notable trans community figures with a story to tell.

One of her aims is to compensate for the fact that trans people are so infrequently featured in the media and that, when they are, the portrayals are so often constrained to the role of victim or curiosity. By sharp contrast, Christine’s recordings create a an important historical record of real trans people and events in the early part of the Twenty First Century.

For LGBT History Month Christine was determined to obtain an interview that was something special – and what better subject than the trans man who began the modern era of trans activism in the UK, by taking the first ever Human Rights case by a transsexual person to the European Court of Human Rights in the mid 1980’s.

Although Mark Rees failed in this first bid for trans people to be able to obtain new birth certificates, protect their privacy and be able to marry, his action established the precedent for others to follow – leading to a later successful case in 2002, and the passage of the Gender Recognition Act in 2004. Mark was also instrumental in the creation of the campaign group Press for Change.

You can listen to and download the interview here.

To subscribe to Christine’s other podcasts, simply add this ‘feed’ to iTunes or your desktop MP3 client: http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/1313/podcast

Transexuals in Iran (updated)

BBC Two documentary explores why so many Iranians undergo sex change operations.

Although homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in Iran, more sex change operations are carried out there than any other nation in the world apart from Thailand, with the government providing up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance.

American-Iranian film maker Tanaz Eshaghian has made a documentary ‘Transsexual In Iran’ exploring the phenomenon. She discusses her film on Woman's Hour here.

Transexuals in Iran is on BBC 2 on Monday 25th February 2008 at 9pm (The programme can be viewed online until next Monday here - duration: 60 min).

On 30 March, the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival will also be showing two films on the subject. The Birthday and Shahram and Abbas, A rare glimpse inside Iranian society and its struggle with gender and sexuality (more information here).

See also:
* Out in Iran: Inside Iran's Secret Gay World - CBC - March 2007
* The Ayatollah and the transsexual, The Independent - 25 November 2004
* Iran's Transsexual Revolution, The Independent - 13 November 2005

Truman Capote reads "A Christmas Memory"

Below is a link to a recording of Truman Capote reading his short story A Christmas Memory. It shows a very different Truman Capote from the one depicted in the film Capote; a sensitive and caring Capote; the one who wrote Other Voices, Other Rooms and The Grass Harp.

A Christmas Memory (36min - Real Player required)

The recording is availalbe on the American Public Media website which can be found here and houses many gems.

The LGBT History Month would like to wish you all a happy, safe and prosperous new year.

The Interview: Graeme Le Saux

Graeme Le Saux is a footballer who had a successful career playing for top club Chelsea and representing England -- but he never felt like he fitted in to the British football culture. He wasn't keen on getting drunk or hanging out with his team-mates and he ended up receiving abuse from fans and players throughout his career who chanted gay slurs at him. For BBC World Service, he talks about the impact homophobia had on his life and what his experience says about "the beautiful game".

Download Episode (right click and save)
Duration: 26mins | File Size: 13MB | Format: mp3

The Interview
Footballer Comes Out on Homophobic Bullying

Camden Community Radio Reports on the Month

In February 2007, the Camden LGBT Forum organised an event for almost every day of the month. Ben Cooper of the Camden Community Radio went along to the official launch of History Month in Camden, "Out in Camden 3", on 12 February. There he met up with the organisers and some of the guest speakers.

Keith Moffitt, the first openly gay leader of Camden Council, who opened the event talked to Ben about his experience as an openly gay man in politics.

Sue Sanders, co-chair of LGBT History Month and originator of the Month, explained how she got the idea of the Month and what she hopes to achieve through it.

Lou Hart, director of the Camden LGBT Forum, reminded Ben of the importance of celebrating our history which is too often hidden or lost.

Trainee Detective Constable and Community Safety Unit Officer for the Met Police, Emma Whitehead told of her personal experience both inside and outside the Force and encouraged people to report any hate crime they might be victims of.

Neil Mckenna, author of The Secret life of Oscar Wilde, recalled an encounter with prejudice when working as a journalist while Lindsay River, project coordinator for Polari, talks of society's reluctance to recognise that older people (straight or gay) can have sexual desires and of the lack of awareness with carer that there is such thing as older LGBT people.

Lou Hart concluded the programme by highlighting some of the 32 events forming the Froum's contribution to LGBT History Month 07 and the biggest programme of events in the country.

You can listen to the programme here (Real Player file, 7.73mb, 08:46min)

Camden Community Radio
Camden LGBT Forum website

Noel Coward Play Rediscovered

85 years after it was written, The Better Half, a one act play e by Noel Coward, has been rediscovered in the archive of the British Library. The play, despite its suggestions that women had sexual feelings, had escaped the Lord Chamberlain's censure and had been performed in 1922, though it was never published.

The Better Half is being performed by The Sticking Place theatre company at the Union Theatre in Southwark (South London) between 16th October and 10th November as part of the company's Annual Horror Theatre Festival.

Highlighting the discovery of the play, BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, recently took a look at the women in Coward's life. The programme remains available online here.

See Also:
'Lost' Noel Coward play uncovered - BBC News
Coward's long-lost satire was almost too 'daring' about women - The Guardian
Coward Play Rediscovered - Theatre in Wales
The Better Half - Wikipedia

The Better Half
The Union Theatre
Union Street
Southwark, London.
October 16th – November 10th 2007 (Tuesdays – Saturdays at 7.30pm)
Tickets (Tue-Thu) £10, £8 concessions (Fri-Sat) £12, £10 concessions
Halloween Specials October 29th, 30th and 31st at 7.30pm (all tickets £15)
Box Office: 020 7261 9876
Union Theatre
Season of Terror

Maupin on Bookclub on Radio 4

The September edition of BBC Radio 4's Bookclub, presented by James Naughtie will be discussing Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, the first in a serie of six books which began as a column in the San Francisco Chronicle in the mid-70s. Maupin created a utopian community that embraced all the sexual variety the city had to offer.

Bookclub
BBC Radio 4
Sunday 2 September - 4pm
Thursday 6 September - 4pm

The programme will then remain available to listen to in the programme's archive where an edition of Bookclub with Sarah Waters discussing Fingersmith in March 2004 is also on offer (click here to listen to Sarah Waters - 30min - opens Real Player)

Consenting Adults

The 75-minute special is set against the deliberations of the Wolfenden Committee, established by the then Home Secretary to look into the law relating to Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in September 1954.

Consenting Adults follows the diverse members of the committee as they struggle towards their radical conclusions.

Its principal recommendation – the decriminalisation of homosexuality – remains a turning point in British social, legal and cultural history, even though the legislation took another ten years to come to the statute book (and even longer in Scotland and Northern Ireland).

The film unravels the inherent drama of the situation, using the transcripts of the original committee hearings, the rich cast of committee members, witnesses, contemporary court cases and fictionalised moments in the corridors of power.

But the public drama is mixed with the more private but equally compelling personal conflict between Wolfenden and his son, Jeremy, then a brilliant undergraduate at Oxford.

Committee chairman John Wolfenden, played by Charles Dance (Bleak House, Fingersmith), thought homosexuality "an abomination", but he knew that his own son Jeremy, played by Sean Biggerstaff (Oliver Wood in Harry Potter), was an active homosexual.

Despite his personal views he led the committee to conclude that the law should not interfere in the private lives of consenting adults or enforce any particular pattern of behaviour. It was a triumph of reason over instinct.

The drama, written by Julian Mitchell, is directed by Richard Curson-Smith, produced by Robert Dawson-Scott and executive produced by Colin Cameron for Lion Television Scotland.

Consenting Adults
Wednesday 29th August 2007 9pm-10.20pm
Monday 5 September 2007 9pm-10.20pm; rpt 2.25am-3.45am
Friday 7 September 2007 10.10pm-11.30pm; rpt 1.45am-3.05am
BBC Four

A trailer can be viewed on the informative microsite dedicated to the film.

An interview of writer Julian Mitchell and actor Charles Dance, who plays Wolfenden, conducted by Mark Lawson for BBC Radio 4's Front Row, can be downloaded here.

The film is part of a BBC Four season on homosexuality intitled Hidden Lives.