66 Scene
Turn Back the Pages
Gscene has been published every month for over 27 years, and is a rich chronicle of the history of our LGBTQ+ communities, in and around Brighton & Hove. Chris Gull raids the archives… Claudia Patrice, Topping & Butch and the DE Experience. From his time in Brighton, Drag With No Name and Maisie Trollette captured exactly what the show was all about – ‘the love of community.’ Finally, the crowd was brought to its feet by the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus and the Rainbow Chorus, who delivered a magnificent finale to the show with their rendition of the show’s title song, When You Tell Me That You Love Me. It was a fabulous evening created by people who had a genuine affection for him and it was held together with military precision by Lola Lasagne, who is blossoming into a consummate compère as well as performer and organiser of community events.
March 2006 Fifteen tears ago (!) Brighton came together to celebrate the life of Phil Starr, and James Ledward called out a Tory councillor as a bigot. PHIL STARR TRIBUTE SHOW ) The Brighton LGBT community staged a tribute show for one of its favourite adopted sons on Sunday, January 29 at The Dome. The Phil Starr Tribute Show, When You Tell Me That You Love Me, attracted 1,400 devotees to the theatre to be entertained by colleagues from Phil’s 50 years in the business. All artists donated their services free of charge to help give ‘The Master’ the send-off he deserved from his fans and friends in Brighton. Representing his days in variety, You Me and Him – Paul James, Peter Anthony and Billy Knutt – set the tone and standard for the show with a 15-minute set of close vocal harmonies that set the audience buzzing. Representing the acts that Phil worked with in London were Jacqui Cann, Katrina & the Boy,
TORY ATTACKS ‘GAY VILLAGE’ ) A Tory councillor has attacked plans to upgrade the facilities in St James’s Street to make the gay village a safer and more comfortable place for everyone to live. Councillor for Hangleton & Knoll, Dawn Barnett, said in a recent letter to The Argus: “I am in agreement with the comments of Alan Bond of the St James’s Forum Action Group. As a heterosexual person, I see no need to make a song and dance about it or decorate my street in a certain way. Thus, it is a little disappointing everyone’s taxes should specifically finance LGBT taxpayers.”
James Ledward, editor of Gscene, said: “There are many examples where LGBT people have historically paid taxes that only benefit people in the straight community. If LGBT people used the same benchmark when paying their taxes, the children of bigots who express similar sentiments to Dawn Barnett would never receive an education. I saw the Greens’ suggestions about the development of St James’s Street published in The Argus as an attempt to flush out the bigots and trouble-makers, prior to the Gay Business Forum presenting their thoughtout proposals for the upgrading of the area. As expected, the bigots came out in force, many hiding behind their gay-friendly credentials, to remind us all we have a long way to go to achieve full equality and fairness.”
March 2011 ) Ten years ago (!), the Pride debacle rolls on,
with yet another incisive editorial from James Ledward, and Brighton named the third most gay-friendly destination in THE WORLD!
COMMENT ) “I approached Cllr Mary Mears last October after it became clear there was a distinct possibility that Pride 2011 would be boycotted by some LGBT voluntary organisations if the present organisers continued to organise the event. Over the following months many people, including the former Chair of Pride, David Harvey, who set Pride up as a charity, called for the charity to close down because it was in his view “wrong to raise money from people to stage a party in Preston Park which did not benefit LGBT community organisations”. The Women’s Performance Tent Organisers, Calabash, Lunch Positive, in partnership with Wilde Ones and Aeon Events produced a consultative document for a community business partnership to stage Pride in 2011. These organisations asked me to be a conduit between them and the council.
The Reclaim Pride organisers went to public consultation and developed a fully costed bid that would guarantee money for our LGBT organisations. They sat and waited for the invitation to present their bid to the council. The invitation never came. Instead a round table meeting was called at the beginning of February, the purpose of which was not clear to anyone, myself included. At the round table meeting it emerged that council officers leading for the council thought the purpose of the process had been to have a single Pride and it did not occur to them that the council had to choose between two opposing bids. Behind the scenes the council had been continuing to meet with Pride in Brighton & Hove organisers.
