Homosexuality
Gentle genius
Dissatisfied with his unfinished epic, the dying Vergil called for his scrolls to be burned, but was fortunately overruled by the Emperor Augustus
Germ of an idea
Bleach and germs are the central themes of Dr Semmelweis, written by Mark Rylance and Stephen Brown. The opening scene,…
Queer spaces
Diarmuid Hester goes in search of the private places of eight remarkable figures from the 20th century, to find only Derek Jarman’s cottage preserved intact as a shrine
Cheerful meanderings
Now established in Cambridge, John Cromer embarks on a whirlwind of small adventures, testing our patience, if not our sympathy, with his extensive digressions
A dangerous Christ-complex
His fateful intransigence over the negotiations has been variously ascribed to a Christ-complex, an unhappy childhood and even latent homosexuality
Last chance saloon
Florian Illies describes the charged atmosphere of Europe in the early 1930s, as people grew increasingly desperate to celebrate their last chance of freedom
An eye for the absurd
Come for the satire, stay for the one-liners, and take succour from the hope Walter finds in a world where everyone needs an angel from time to time
Journey to selfhood
Seán Hewitt, born in 1990, realised that he was gay at a very early age. ‘A kind, large woman’ who…
Read his lips
Of all the photos of artists in the studio, the one of Glyn Philpot being served a martini by his…
Glaswegian waif
Douglas Stuart has a rare gift. The Scottish writer, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain deservedly won the 2020 Booker Prize,…
The making of a poet
Charles Causley was a poet’s poet. Both Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin considered him the finest candidate for the laureateship,…
Decline and fall
Edmund White’s new novel opens, somewhat improbably, in 2050. This imagined future, however, springs few surprises on the reader and…
Have we reached peak human rights?
After the Colston debacle, you might be forgiven for having missed the other legal story that broke this week. The…
Girls, girls, girls
Lolita, the Lady Chatterley trial, the pill, Christine Keeler, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, love-ins, Oh! Calcutta!, the Oz trial…
This will hurt
Before the National Theatre produced Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood they had to make a decision. How could they stuff…
The time of our lives
Gay bar, how I miss you. Barely any lesbian joints have survived the online dating scene, and Grindr has replaced…
Cold and inhospitable
Like this author, I was happily snowbound at a beloved grandparent’s house during the big freeze that began on Boxing…
Diary
Among the greatest bores right now are those friends who insist on telling you, usually as if it’s some kind…
The age of camp is over
Last week we broadcast my BBC radio Great Lives episode on Kenneth Williams. The effervescent comedian and presenter Tom Allen…
The poet of self-discovery
To describe a new book as ‘eagerly awaited’ is almost unpardonable. Yet Mark Doty’s What is the Grass: Walt Whitman…
The music deafens
People often say that the battle for male gay rights has been won, at least in the West, and that…
Deepest, darkest desires
In Henry and June, Anaïs Nin asks her cousin Eduardo if one can be freed of a desire by experiencing…
Georgia on my mind
The film you want to see this week that you mightn’t have seen if you weren’t stuck at home is…
Pete Buttigieg is a slightly less gay version of Obama
On Valentine’s Day, Mayor Pete and his hus-bear Chasten managed to once again charm absolutely no one, barring a few…
A surefire international hit: Lungs reviewed
No power on earth can stop Lungs from becoming an international hit. Duncan Macmillan’s slick two-handed comedy reunites Matt Smith…
