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In 2018, a campaign to set up a new community centre in east London raised £102,000, and efforts continue, albeit on a voluntary basis. Although enough cash was raised to buy the building in 1989, it closed a couple of years later, leaving London, in contrast to New York and Paris, without any such facility. The abolition of the GLC by Margaret Thatcher, who had previously said the council’s spending on minorities was “a disgraceful waste of money” represented a huge financial blow. There was mismanagement “at all levels, from volunteers who thought it was fine to let their friends eat for free, to bar deliveries where half the stock went straight into someone’s car”. “The centre was run by total amateurs chosen for their political categories or beliefs and not for being able to run a successful social or commercial undertaking,” one former visitor told Vice magazine in 2016. If this all sounds like a blissful utopia, the reality might occasionally have been different. Photograph: Courtesy Hall-Carpenter Archives and UCL Urban Laboratory Others have sought designation as “assets of community value” or heritage listing to secure their future.Ĭlosed … a diary from the London Lesbian and Gay Centre. The losses have included fixtures of the London scene: the Coleherne in Earl’s Court, which had been going since the 1930s Islington’s oldest gay pub, the King Edward IV, and the Black Cap in Camden, which closed in 2015 after 50 years. “That didn’t really come up so much in the research we did … We noticed that, in a lot of the cases, there was a link to some kind of larger-scale development, or small-scale luxury residential development.” “Some of the media narratives were around technology and Gaydar, Grindr, how that’s changed everything,” says Campkin. The phenomenon defies easy explanation, but changing habits and the city’s seemingly unstoppable economic growth play a part. From 2006 to 2017, the number of LGBT clubs, bars and performance spaces in London dropped dramatically, from 121 to 51. Work led by Campkin at University College London’s Urban Laboratory has shown that nightlife, in particular, has been hit hard.
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The exhibition comes at a time of crisis for LGBT venues. Headspace … performer Tom Kendall sports a Black Cap-shaped hat.
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They have been analysing the changing landscape of the queer community in London since 2016, and dragged up once again in front of the press at the Whitechapel Gallery to mark the opening of Queer Spaces: London, 1980s–Today. The event had been organised by the architecture academics Ben Campkin and Lo Marshall as a riff on the famous 1931 Beaux Arts Ball in New York, at which attendees dressed as the Chrysler building and the Waldorf Astoria hotel. They were London’s queer spaces, past and present.
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The models didn’t represent buildings of any great distinction, but to members of the audience they were a familiar lineup: the Black Cap, the Joiners Arms, the Glass Bar, the Lesbian and Gay Centre. Each performer was wearing an architectural model on their head, and instead of lip-syncing, they were reading out snippets of planning and licensing documents. A lot of work had gone into the costumes, but these were not of the kind you’d expect: there were no rhinestones or wigs. Dick Whittington: A New Dick In Town is a fabulously filthy and hilariously happy winter treat.O n a summer’s day in 2017, in gardens near the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, an unusual drag show took place. Packed with all the popular panto traditions, original songs and a cornucopia of dick jokes. Can he clear his name, win back his boy and defeat Queen Rat before she brings London to its knees - and not in a good way? But just as Londoners are getting back on their feet, dastardly mayoral candidate Queen Rat and her minions rise up to bite them in the ankles! When she frames Dick for a terrible crime, Dick stiffens himself for a great adventure. Like many a gay country lad, Dick comes to the big city in search of men and money. now.” - UKTWĪfter years of sell-out smashes our acclaimed pantomime team are back with their rude, riotous and unashamedly romantic take on the ultimate London legend! ★★★★★ “It wouldn’t be Christmas without visiting the gay adult panto at the Above The Stag Theatre” - West End Wilma Join us for this Panto season and support Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons' Trust on this exclusive night: Dick Whittington: A New Dick in Townīy Jon Bradfield & Martin Hooper songs by Jon Bradfield