Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 493 i GAY TIMES

When an album contains songs about an extraterrestrial being discovering love on their final night on this planet (One Last Night On This Earth), and modern enlightenment in the world we currently live in (Illusions), you’d be forgiven for thinking things might start to get too lofty. But on Sundara Karma’s second studio collection Ulfilas’ Alphabet – out on 1 March – they have married big philosophical ideas with classic songwriting, tying it neatly together with a sprinkling of pop. Led by their gender-fluid frontperson Oscar Pollock, the band worked with Everything Everything’s Alex Robertshaw and legendary producer Stuart Price (Pet Shop Boys, Madonna), so that should give you a sense of how exciting it all sounds. We met up with Oscar in a South London cafe to speak about…

Drag Race HERstory was made on 15 February, 2019 when RuPaul crowned not one, but two sickening queens for the fourth season of All Stars. After ten episodes of challenges, lip syncing for their legacy and sashaying down the runway, Monét X Change and Trinity the Tuck were both deemed worthy of a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame, and it’s safe to say it left the drag world-as Monique Heart would say - “gooped”. It made history for two reasons: one, there’s never been multiple queens crowned at the same time and two, RuPaul has never inducted a queen of colour into the Hall of Fame. “I am completely shocked,” Monét tells us over the phone after we interrupt her McDonalds (yas queen, she may have 100,000…

Where is it? In Laax, an Alpine ski resort where they seem to have burnt down all the cloying Heidi stuff and replaced it with cool, edgy, concrete-and-plywood architecture and interiors. But those mountains are still mighty impressive and the skiing – especially freestyle – is world-beating. Why so lovely? Bearing in mind a lot of the accommodation in European ski resorts looks basically like a cuckoo clock with rooms attached, this is a breath of fresh Alpine air with floor-to-ceiling windows, bare concrete walls, a bar that wouldn’t look out of place in the most hipster-esque part of East London or Berlin and an attention to detail that comes when the whole thing is put together not only by proper ski people – and we mean freestyle ski people,…

sissy that walk! This season, the shoe game is getting thicker and chunkier! Minimalism is dead! Subtlety is cancelled! These offerings are guaranteed to stop traffic as you stomp the streets, pound the pavement and take over the city! (or village, we don’t judge). the bags under my eyes are designer. The common ‘bumbag’ has elevated herself to ‘belt bag’ status. Quite fancy! She’s designer, she’s compact and she’s perfect to bag all your on the go essentials. Grab your fav now!…

Models Saket and Xavier at Select Model Management Hair Alex James using Fudge Makeup Kazuhiro Takenaka using NARS Cosmetics Fashion Assistant Antoine Caballero…

THE WHITE CROW (in cinemas from 22 March) From director Ralph Fiennes, this biopic of famous ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev follows him from his poverty-stricken childhood in Soviet city of Ufa, to his escape from the clutches of the KGB and defection to the West during the height of the Cold War. Ukranian ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko makes his acting debut in the role of Nureyev, working with a screenplay by esteemed playwright Sir David Hare. But it’s elegant ballet performances and a graceful score here that will captivate, as audiences find out Nureyev’s heartbreaking ultimatum. For those who don’t know much about the legendary performer, it serves as a stylish introduction to the man who changed ballet forever. LC HEARTSTOPPER (graphic novel out now) While Hollywood continues to drag…

“I’ve always been drawn to telling real and authentic stories,” Mj Rodriguez opens up to me, just a few days after having the honor of announcing the 30th annual GLAAD Media Award nominations with Crazy Rich Asians star Nico Santos at Sundance Film Festival. She’s only been back on the East Coast for a few days, and I patiently wait as she traces her memory for the first time she used storytelling to express herself. It’s late winter in New York, but she moves gracefully across a naturally lit studio coat-less in a vibrant pink gown hugging her body. She opens her mouth to speak, then gestures her hands towards the sunlight, slightly adjusting the gathering fabric around her ankles. She elaborates: “It all started at a very young age…

Ellen Page has been really busy. Along with promoting a new TV show for Netflix, over the past few weeks the Canadian actor has made headlines by giving an impassioned speech on American television against Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and the devastating ramifications of hate speech, and used Twitter to take aim at the infamous and allegedly anti-LGBTQ, Justin Bieber-endorsed Christian group, Hillsong Church. It’s meant that trying to pin down a time to chat to Ellen for this interview has proven difficult – she’s been preoccupied putting the world to rights! Having spent over half her life in the film industry, Page, now 31, almost sees her denouncement and displacement of bigotry as a duty. Early in her career, she caught immediate attention thanks her immense acting…

Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard and Parr are back! From Tudor Queens to Pop Princesses, the history books are almost being overthrown and in rather spectacular style. Remixing five hundred years of historical heartbreak into a 75-minute celebration of 21st century girl power, it’s no wonder Six is fast becoming the breakout show of the century. But why Henry VIII? And more importantly, why his wives set to pop music? We meet Six writers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss to talk pop, bops and serving up the sass. Why was now the time to ‘put it on a sick beat’ and explore the story of these women? Lucy: We came up with the idea this time two years ago and it was based on conversations in the lead up to…

After years of discussion, many headlines written, and plenty of social media commentary, last year saw BBC One’s Saturday night entertainment behemoth Strictly Come Dancing finally do it. What started out as a regular display of mixed-sex couples delivering a crisply-choreographed Latin number to Imagine Dragons’ dramatic rock anthem Believer became, within moments, a little piece of television history. Viewers were suddenly bearing witness to the show’s first ever same-sex pairings. On a podium rising above the dancefloor, Gorka Marquez was embroiled in a powerful routine with Strictly golden boy-next-door and this month’s Gay Times cover star, AJ Pritchard. “I think coming from that routine, the audience reaction was definitely one hundred percent positive and I think that shows, not how far everyone has come, but rather how open minded…

Making his feature film debut after a series of short films, French writer-director Camille Vidal-Naquet isn’t out to judge sex workers, but rather to challenge the stigma that surrounds the subject. “And I don’t think it’s just in gay society that the stigma exists,” he feels. “Prostitution is a difficult subject for people and they’re quick to pass judgement because they don’t understand how anyone could do this work, men or women. But it does highlight the difference between how society views men and women. When we were shooting the film we discovered a lot of people – when we spoke to them on the streets where we were filming, for example – felt it was absolutely normal to see women hustling but they were extremely surprised or embarrassed to…

You can tell the dominant nationality of the nudist beach at Hersonissos, a rambunctious patch on Crete’s north coast, pretty easily: no Italian preening, no Russian grand-standing, this is your authentic Brit nervously shielding their pinker parts. And like any stretch of Mediterranean coastline you’ll find strip bars (Lollipops pole-dancing was so open it was almost al fresco), a Shenanigans Irish bar or two and a ludicrous number of car rental outlets. Also, is that a foam party or a children’s playground…? We’re largeing it at the Abaton Island Resort & Spa – skillfully tucked away from the hullabaloo but close enough should you get the urge – a beautiful, recently-completed 5-star resort with 150 or so apartments and villas, more than half with their own pools, and only twenty…

It’s been impossible to escape the sound of Mabel over the last few years, be it 2017’s hit track Finders Keepers, 2018’s Jax Jones collaboration Ring Ring, or her latest single Don’t Call Me Up, which kicked off her 2019 by becoming her highest charting single to date. With the recent re-issue of excellent mixtape Ivy To Roses, Mabel has cemented herself as one of the most exciting (and consistently great) rising British talents, with not a single dud track to her name – and trust us, we know a pop banger when we hear one. As she adds the finishing touches to her upcoming debut album, we caught up with Mabel to talk about chart success, touring with Harry Styles, and why it’s so important to empower her queer…

After it opened at the New York Theatre Workshop last December, Slave Play quickly found itself enveloped in controversy. Social media was alight with criticism, think pieces were unleashed, and a change.org petition calling for the production to be cancelled was launched. For playwright Jeremy O. Harris, the volume of reactions was unexpected. “I thought the people who would have opinions on the play would be people who interacted with it in a theatrical space, but the majority of the people who have interacted with this play have only interacted with the title and some PR images that were found online,” he explained to us. “That was surprising to me, because I didn’t take into account that the internet would intersect with my world.” In the aftermath of the show’s…

“Passion is the driver of everything in Brazil,” says Bob, the bisexual owner of UXUA (pronounced ‘oo-shoe-er’) Casa Hotel and Spa in Trancoso, in beachy, hippyish Bahia. “Gender is just a detail.” We’re lounging in the beautiful grounds of the… not really hotel because accommodations are scattered all over the tiny town, on a lazy rainy day, weather that we’ve chosen to ignore. The conversation has come around to the subject of the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, a man who has made his anti-gay (and anti-woman) stance crystal clear to a nation – and a world! – in shock that a character they’re calling the Trump of the Tropics, but who actually makes Trump seem woolly and liberal, should come to power in Brazil. Of all places. “Brazil is a…

There are farms, then there’s Durslade Farm. “When I used to work for Sting and Trudie,” goes Paul, not showing off, just telling nice stories, “Madonna was always popping round. She was lovely. My daughters used to play with David.” Paul is the head farmer on Durslade Farm, probably the most glamorous working farm in the world. He looks like Jason Statham would look if he had to get up early, with dirt under the nails, rips on his jeans from getting stuck in, and an accent straight off The Vicar of Dibley. He’s driving us round in a 4x4 – one with a dusting of real-life mud which you don’t see on those 4x4s cruising down the Kings Road – pointing at fields of gold and barley and ancient…

It’s a popular culture icon, perhaps the most famous road in the world (yeah, there’s the Champs Elysees, but they don’t actually go anywhere) and a slice of pure Americana. Here’s a little taster of what’s in store. A Top of the Route 66 Pops, as it were… Begin your legendary journey in the heart of downtown Chicago at the very start of Route 66. Snap the perfect first selfie as you set off on your 300-mile descent down the Mother Road at the iconic Route 66 Begin sign on E. Jackson Blvd. Before you get too far, it’s time for a little grub at Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket in Wilmington, which has been serving up some of the best fried chicken on Route 66 since it opened as a…