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Criterion Theatre
Queers (2021)
Curated by Mark Gatiss
Sun 18th July to Sun 18th July
Memory
Director – Gennie Holmes
Cast
Perce – Leigh Bartlam
Bobby – Georgia Kelly
Alice – Anne-marie Greene
Jack – Mark Jefferies
Phil – Ted Mcgowan
Andrew – Paul Forey
Steve – Gareth Cooper

In late September 2020, we produced the sell out show 'Queers: Eight Monologues' to a socially distanced audience.

We were honoured to have been asked to reprise the production on Sunday July 18th 2021, providing the opening night of the week-long British All-Winners Festival at The Albany Theatre hosted by the National Drama Festivals Association. The festival staged in Coventry to coincide with the City of Culture 2021 was a celebration of the very best of amateur drama from around the country. Our production went on to win Runner Up for the Best Full Length Play and the presitigious Adjudicator's Award for Georgia Kelly's performance as Bobby. 

'Queers' is a wonderful collection of beautifully-written monologues, all by different writers, which celebrates a century of evolving social attitudes and political milestones in British LGBTQI+ history, as seen through the eyes of different individuals. A young soldier returning from the trenches of the First World War recollects a love that dare not speak its name. Almost one hundred years later, a groom-to-be prepares for his gay wedding.  

Poignant and personal, funny, tragic and riotous, these  monologues for male and female performers cover major events – such as the Wolfenden Report of 1957, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the debate over the age of consent – through deeply affecting and personal rites-of-passage stories.

They were curated by Mark Gatiss and broadcast on BBC Four in 2017 and also staged at The Old Vic in London.

Reviews of the production in 2020

"Eight monologues by eight different writers are delivered by eight different actors – each one giving thought-provoking resonance to their words. A reminder, if it were needed, that the reopening of a theatre can lead to the reopening of minds." Chris Arnot

"Queers is a good choice of play for our times. This series of eight monologues, each by a different author... is well suited to the moment when coming together carries risks that are mitigated by behaviour and controls... Each presents a sensitive, nuanced, sometimes angry, bitter-sweet portrait of lives lived, sometimes to fulfilment, sometimes not... a long journey which, given the hostility that still exists in the world, is by no means over." Nick LeMesurier

This play contains strong language and content of a sexual nature.

This is an amateur production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books.

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