…a week of gay.
So, it turns out that throwing a big camp birthday party does not constitute the gayest thing I have ever done. Despite going all out in a monochrome drag outfit, it appears that having a camptastic extravaganza is only the gateway to even more flaming homo. This week James and I went to see “Hello, Dolly!” at the Bristol Hippodrome. I know it’s a cliche: musical theatre made famous by Barbra Streisand; it’s a stone’s throw away from rainbow hotpants and a fake tan. I’m tempted to take a share on Fire Island and call it a day. Just to lay on the gay a bit thicker, the lead was none other than Anita Dobson. Yes, Angie from Eastenders, chanteuse of “Anyone can fall in love” and owner of the biggest hairdo this side of, well, her husband.
It’s my own fault, of course: I bought James the tickets for his birthday. (His love of Barbra is well documented and when tickets go on sale the very week before there’s nothing you can really do, is there?) We showed up and it was like Atlanta all over again: married middle-aged couples (wives looking excited, husbands looking for the bar), fashionable young theatre students and gays; hoardes of ‘em. The place was riddled with queers. Our seats (stalls, of course. Only the best for Sveny and James) were sandwiched between two young ladies in flowery skirts and dainty little pumps, and a whole row of flaming queens. If I could bottle “coo-ees” I’d have enough to keep me going from now till next Christmas, and a sack-and-a-half of frantic, limp-wristed waves to boot. The whole place fluttered like a peacock. When Dolly finally got on the train for Yonkers I was disappointed the conductor didn’t yell the obvious: “Welcome aboard the Camp Express: next stop Dragville!”
The show itself was good fun, markedly different from the film (of course) but entertaining. Dolly’s outfits were predictably fabulous and the grand entrance for the big Harmonia Gardens showdown was worthy of the entrance fee. James and I went home suitably impressed. All camp ended on Tuesday: gay was still very much to come.
Friday night involved a big gay pub crawl up and down Bristol’s village with Gary and Niall. Both are moving to Brighton next weekend so this was a nice way to wish them well (Niall is the new editor of one80news for whom I will be writing a column. It’s not what you know…). Not so nice in the morning though. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Jack Daniels does not like me. I was as sick as a dog and had to crowbar myself out of bed before the man came around to buy our car. Fortunately there was nothing else for me to do except try not to look too hanging until the man had left, and then sit around all day watching Babylon 5 on DVD and dozing off at intervals.
That evening, despite the hangover, I managed to struggle out with James to meet Gary and Niall again for the opening of The Bristol Bear Bar. For the record, I don’t go a bundle on this pigeonholing of gay society (apparently I’m preppy, though I prefer to think of myself as waspish) but it was still fun to go somewhere I wouldn’t normally venture. The BBB is like every gay bar you have ever imagined - video screens playing classic pop, disco laser pointers and every spirit and mixer conceivable - except it’s full of thickly set men with more hair on their faces than the tops of their heads. I’ve never seen anything like it (being preppy and all), nor have I ever been so warm: it’s a small bar and they were big guys. James and I called it a night early, partly from genuine fatigue and partly from heat exhaustion.
So that concludes my little tour of gay in Bristol. Astute readers will notice that things, they are a-changing here in the basement flat and I promise that next week I will have big news, but for now I shall just have to leave you in suspenders. Much like me last week.
