Rite of Spring Centenary.

Michael Langan talks to the dancer Paul White about the highly anticipated UK premiere of Meryl Tankard’s The Oracle at the Southbank Centre.

” I would say however, that the freedom I have around sexuality influences how uninhibited I can be in my physicality, and possibly allows for an openness in my creativity.”

★★★★★
Cert:15 • Spain: 90 min • El Deseo S.A. • May 3 2013

Pedro Almodóvar’s Los Amantes Pasajeros (I’m So Excited) is possibly his campest film to date.

“It’s a stylish, glossy cartoon of a film by someone at the absolute peak of his powers with nothing really to prove, so here he’s doing exactly what he wants, which is to delight and amuse.”

★★★★★
424 pages • Phaidon Press Ltd • 1 April, 2013 [HB]

Art and Queer Culture is a beautifully produced & expertly written survey of the relationship between visual art & transgressive sexualities.

“Art and Queer Culture is an invaluable resource for anyone studying, or even just interested in, the history of transgressive sexualities and gender politics in the visual arts and Phaidon’s characteristically high quality production values make this a pleasure to read.”

★★★★★
Cert:18 • US: 32 min • Kickstarter • April 13 2013

In Their Room London. The series is an fly-on-the-wall, verité style to show gay men in their private spaces at private moments. Insightful.

” They eat and wash and groom and wank (not necessarily in that order) and talk about aspects of their sexuality, from what they like in bed to their dreams and desires regarding relationships.”

The Latest Travis Mathews Film.

Michael Langan talks to Alex Karotsch, the Fringe! Film Fest producer, who is performing in Travis Mathews’ film In Their Room London.

“In a film like that you can’t really hold back. And I didn’t want to hold back, because that’s the whole point of it. So I tried to be as honest as possible, but it’s very different from talking to your friends.”

★★★★★
Released March 11, 2013
Review. John Grant’s Pale Green Ghosts boasts beautiful songs coupled with painfully honest and idiosyncratic lyrics.

“Whilst his music doesn’t fit any stereotyped categorization of gay music, the songs are distinctly queer, with the bent of a man who has struggled with his sexuality, his addictions, his demons, and continues to do so. “

★★★★★
Cert:18 • US: 60 min • RabbitBandini Productions • January 19, 2013

Interior. Leather Bar. This playful film is a fascinating look at queer desire, and the extent to which we are actors in our own lives.

“The narrative sets up questions around freedom of expression, individual and societal homophobia, and anxieties about depicting sex generally, so that the sex itself, when it happens, becomes an embodiment of those issues.”

★★★★★
224 pages • Serif • 31 May, 2012 [PB]

Drawn and written when he was 17, Federico Garcia Lorca’s beautiful Sketches of Spain has been translated into English for the first time.

“Lorca’s murder by Nationalist gunmen during the Spanish Civil War at the age of 38 makes any reading of Lorca’s thoughts on death resonate with totemic force. His own body, never found or identified, has become part of the Spanish earth that he loved.”

Simon Oldfield Gallery.

Michael Langan talks to Simon Foxall about Queer Art, and how so many images in the pop-culture landscape operate as fantasies that obscure uncomfortable truths.

“South America has always interested me as a Hollywood product, one that has been used as an escapist tool. I think Evita interests me in that way too – do we think of Madonna and the music, or of the glamorous supporter of European fascism?”

Kate Bush, ‘Kashka From Baghdad’.

To mark LGBT History Month, 2013, Polari asked its contributors to recall a song that had an impact their own stories.

“They’re not tragic figures these gay men, instead they engender love and hope; ‘At night, they’re seen laughing, loving. They know the way to be happy’.”