Edinburgh
I The Vagina Monologues Festival Theatre. 13—29 Nicolson Street. 529 6000. 8pm. £13.50—L‘l9.50. See Tue 20. Associated with LGBT History Mont/1.
Saturday 24
Glasgow
I Life Begins at 40 Terrence Higgins Trust Scotland. 134 Douglas Street. 332 3838. 10am—4pm. See Fri 23.
I Storytelling Evening Glasgow LGBT Centre. 1 1 Dixon Street. 221 7203. 7pm. Free. Young and old can share stories of what life is like. and what life was like. for LGBT people. All welcome. l’urt ofl.(ili'l' History Month.
Edinburgh
I The Vagina Monologues Festival Theatre. 13—29 Nicolson Street. 529 6000. 8pm. £13.50>-£19.50. See Tue 20. Associated with LGBT History Month.
Glasgow
I Club Noir: Advanced Burlesque Workshop The Arches. 253 Argyle Street. 0870 240 7528. 10.30am—6pm. £75 (includes two tickets to Club Noir). See Around Town llitlist. page 25.
I Film Night Glasgow LGBT Centre. 1 1 Dixon Street. 221 7203. 7pm. Free. Some of the most-loved LGBT films through the decades will be screened. including Priscilla. Queen of [/1(’ Desert. Part of LGBT History .Wuttl/t.
Edinburgh
I Booty Medina. 45—47 Lothian Street. 225 6313. 11pm-- 3am. £3. See Sun 18.
I Metropolitan Community Church Service The Augustine Church. 41 ~43 George 1V Bridge. 668 2019. 6—7.30pm. Free. See Still 18. Port of].(iB'I' History :Wont/t.
I National Gallery of Modern Art LGBT Tour National Gallery ol‘ Modern Art. 75 Bell‘ord Road. 624 6200. 2—3pm. Free. Take a stroll with art historian Matthew Wellard and uncover the secret identities. hidden histories and untold stories within. Meet at the front entrance. Part of LGBT History Month.
I Taste Cabaret Voltaire. 36—38 Blair Street. 220 6176. l 1pm—3am. £5 before
1 1.30pm: £8 alter (£6 members). See Sun 18.
Monday 26 '
Glasgow
I Mika, Kitty Daisy 8. Lewis and Leon Jean-Marie ABC. 330 Sauchiehall Street. 332 2232. 7pm. See Music. page 75.
I Passionality Cube. 34 Queen Street. 226 8990. l 1.30pm—3am. £3. See Mon 19.
Edinburgh
I Pub Quiz Planet Out. 6 Baxters Place. Leith Walk. 556 5551. 7.30pm. Free. See Mon 19. Port o/‘I.(}B'I‘ History Month.
Glasgow
I FUN Cube. 34 Queen Street. 226 8990. 1 1.30pm—3am. £3. See Tue 20.
I The Gossip and The Violets ABC. 330 Sauchiehall Street. 332 2232. 7pm. £12. See Music 11itlist. page 62.
I Hidden Histories, Lesbian Lives Glasgow Women's Library. 2nd Floor. 81 Parnie Street. 552 8345. 6.30pm. Free. Genevieve Curran leads a session on the often—overlooked histories ol‘ lesbians. and delves into the rich heritage to be found in the library's 'l‘rcasure Trove. To book. email inl'o(a womeninbrary.org.uk.
I Vivid Youth Glasgow LGBT Centre. 11 Dixon Street. 221 7203. 7--9.30pm. Free. See Tue 20.
Edinburgh
I Caledonian Thebans Quiz Night Deep Blue. below the Blue Moon. 1 Barony Street. 556 2788. 7pm. £2.
60 THE LIST 15 Feb—1 Mar 2007
Edinburgh‘s gay and bisexual men‘s rugby club host this fun charity night and test ol‘ the grey matter. with Scottish- themed questions on LGBT people. things and events. Five people per team maximum: prizes for the winning ensemble.
I Vibe ligo. l4 Picardy Place. 478
3 7434. l 1pm—3am. £4. See Tue 20.
Wednesday 28
Glasgow I Allure The Tunnel. 84 Mitchell Street.
204 1000. l 1.30pm—3am. £3. See Wed 21.
Edinburgh I The Hub LGBT Centre for Health & Wellbeing. 9 llowe Street. 523 1100.
3 6.30~8.30pm. Free. See Wed 21. I Hush! Filmhouse. 88 Lothian Road.
45.
228 2688. 8.15pm. See Film Index. page
I lcebreakers (‘C Blooms. 23—24 Greenside Place. 556 9331. 7.30-9pm. Free. Social group for people who want to feel at ease and make friendships in LGBT company. New to lidinburglt. recently out. l‘eel cut olt"? Join this welcoming and non-threatening group.
i organised by the Lothian Gay and
Lesbian Switchboard.
Scene 8. Exhibitions '
Glasgow
I Bennets 80—90 Glassl'ord Street. 552 5761. Wed-Jl‘hu 8; Sun 1 1.30pm—3am. Fri—Sat 1 l.30pm—-3.30am. Friendly.
' down to earth. late-night disco venue.
recently refurbished and rising from the ashes alter a major lire.
I Our Story Scotland Exhibition
Fri 16 Feb--Sun 25 Mar. Winter Gardens. People‘s Palace. Glasgow Green. 271 2962. l lam—5pm. Free. Display ol‘ stories. images. artcl‘acts and research materials from LGBT lives and
experiences in Scotland. collected by the
eponymous oral history charity. Their stories reveal the tremendous social
changes that have occurred in the last
1 century. l’urt of'l.(}B'I' Historv Mont/1.
I The Polo Lounge 84 Wilson Street. 1 553 1221. Mon—Thu 5pm--1am. Fri—Sun i 5pm—3am. Spacious. swanky. gay/mixed
Merchant City club. with several rooms and a downstairs dancelloor open at the weekend (£5 alter 1 1pm).
Edinburgh
' I CC Blooms CC Blooms. 23—24 Greenside Place. 556 9331. Mon. Fri & 2 Sat 6pm—3am; Tue—Thu & Sun
8pm—3am. The east coast scene queen pumps out dance and cheese delights
every night. With 1)] (‘illa Slack on
Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
I Destination 8. Destination 2 17 Albert Street. 0131 554 7282. Destination open daily. 7pm—1am. Fri & Sat 5am—noon: Destination 2 open daily. noon—lam. Food (until 9pm) and relaxation in Destination 2. with camp entertainment and a Moulin Rouge cabaret show (Thu-Sun in February) next door. Valentine‘s Day brings a ‘shagtag‘ party.
I Rainbow City: Stories from
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Edinburgh Until Wed 7 Mar. Leith Library. 28-77 30 Ferry Road. 529 5517. Mon-Thu 10am-8pm. Fri 10am 5pm. Sat 9am~ 1pm. Free. A selection of memorabilia from the Remember When exhibition. which looks
' at how the capital's LGBT lives have
changed between the 16th and 21st
centuries. lixcerpts from oral histories
stand proudly alongside banners. badges. T—shirts and photographs. I’urt (it'l.(ili'l' History Month.
; I “Mist 26B Dublin Street. 538 7775.
Mon —Thu noon 1am; Fri—Sat
noon 2am; Sun 12.30pm- lam. Formerly the Newtown Bar. and now reopened alter a style revamp. Twist features a disco bar downstairs every Friday and Saturday night.
GAY SCREEN
.’
Robin Lee previews LGBT-interest movies at the Glasgow Film Festival, Channel 4’s Gay Week and the early film career of Pier Paolo Pasolini.
I The Glasgow Film Festival programmes five films with a queer bent this year. It’s unbearably hot in The Wayward Cloud, where Taiwan’s heatwave causes the sales of watermelons to shoot up. Hsiao-Kang tries to hide the fact that he’s a porn actor from girlfriend Shiang-chyi, as they drift through life. Director Tsai Ming-liang intersperses the story with dreamlike, fiber-camp, Busby Berkeley-style musical sequences. Similarly dreamy is 4:30 (pictured), from 15 director Royston Tan, in which a boy wakes at the titular time each morning to spy on a male neighbour and steal from him while he sleeps. The relationship is obsessive yet unspoken, until a suicide attempt.
A Soap takes the fanciful plots of TV and makes them real, as beauty salon owner Carolina leaves her boyfriend and moves in next to a pre-op transsexual, Veronika. Their friendship develops, much like the connection between Nike and Katrin in Summer in Berlin. In the post- reunification city, over a summer in which they drink and chat on their tenement balcony, the two women grow close through their trials with unsuitable men, joblessness and bringing up a child.
Filipino feature, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, has a 12-year-old budding drag queen from a criminal family as the main character. He falls in love with a policeman who moves in next door and encourages him to build a better life for himself. And in The Dying Gaul, a screenwriter faces an ethical dilemma when he writes an excellent script based on his lover’s death from AIDS. He’s offered a million dollars for it - but only if he makes it a heterosexual story. See listings for screening dates, times and venues. I Channel 4 schedules Gay Week from Monday 26 February—Friday 2 March. as part of its morning education programme. Rapper QBoy talks about Coming Out to Class with gay school students; teens talk abOut what happens when Mum ’3 Gone Gay; the first-ever same-sex end-of—school dance in the UK occurs in My Big Gay Prom: and Stephen K Amos explores the prejudice. violence and intimidation involved with being queer and black in Batty Man. There's a repeat of Sex, Lies and Soaps. profiling gay teens on TV; How To Dump Your Mates. in which Chris has to decide whether to swap straight friends for gay; and a Gay to Z guide.
I Renewed interest in gay film directors of the past, and the relationship their work has to their sexuality, has seen retrospectives for Mitchell Leisen, Lindsay Anderson (both at the Edinburgh International Film Festival) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (at the Goethe-lnstitut in Glasgow) in recent years. So it’s pleasing to find a two-part DVD box set of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (pictured, inset) early films, selected from the period 1961—69, being released. The poet, director, homosexual and staunch Communist enjoyed challenging the sexual and religious taboos of Catholic postwar Italy, often incurring the wrath of those in power in the process.
Part one of the box set is released on Monday 26 February, and includes his directing debut, Accattone!, set in the slums of Rome. The eponymous (anti-)hero and his friends are thieves and pimps who regard work as a dirty word, lolling about challenging each other with bets. Women are complicated: often they are a source of income, but when Accattone meets Stella, he attempts to make an honest living. In RoGoPaG, Pasolini contributes a film short, La Ricotta, that incurred him a jail sentence for blasphemy. He casts Orson Welles as a director making a movie of the crucifixion, and satirises the society watched over by religion: Jesus enjoys sex with boys, and a starving extra dies on the cross from indigestion after eating some cheese. And finally, Love Meetings (Comizi d’Amore) is a documentary asking everyday Italians their views on sex, society and religion. Tartan Video, £39.99.