Didsbury Pride

Didsbury Pride was held on Saturday, 31 August.

The Pride aims to promote visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community in Didsbury and educate and raise awareness of the spaces and services available locally.

It started with a parade – The Rainbow Walk – on a beautiful sunny day and continued in the grounds of the Emmanuel Church.

It’s a very welcoming inclusive event and we had a great time catching up with lots of friends old and new.

See photos here.

Pride Season – dates for the diary

Greater Manchester’s Pride Season continues and the following Prides are scheduled during September:

Withington – Saturday, 21 September

Chorlton Pride Fundraiser – Friday, 27 September

Withington Pride – Saturday, 21 September 2024

Withington Pride is back, celebrating Radical Joyful Unity in our LGBTQ+ and local communities. This year’s festival is bigger and better, featuring free kids’ crafts, a lively street party, and more -brought to you by Manchester’s top queer collectives and Withington’s venues.

Parade starts at 1.00pm from Withington Baths.

Chorlton Pride Fundraiser – Pop Quiz and After Party

Friday, 27 September 2024 – 8.00pm – 11.59pm

The Beagle, 456-458 Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 0BQ

Join us for a fun night of trivia and music to help us raise money to keep Chorlton Pride events taking place in our community!

Special Host: Our charismatic and fabulous host Vin Dicktiv will guide you through the night, asking all the questions and calling out your lucky bingo numbers.

Delicious Food & Drink: Home of the famous Nell’s Pizza, The Beagle will be serving food and drinks as usual throughout the night.

Live DJ: Continue the night with The Beagle’s resident DJ playing all your favourite pride bangers.

We recommend a maximum team size of 6, but that’s just a suggestion!

All proceeds will go towards supporting Chorlton Pride, ensuring that our events can keep happening in 2025 and beyond.

Chorlton Pride is a volunteer-run event and we rely on the generosity of the community to keep doing what we do. Please consider donating if you can. 

Tickets available here – cost £6.13 including fee.

That groundbreaking gay episode of M*A*S*H

In September 1974, fifty years ago, M*A*S*H featured a groundbreaking gay episode.

Spun off from Robert Altman’s 1970 film of the same name, the TV dramedy followed the lives of US military medical personnel stationed in South Korea during the Korean War. The iconic CBS show was widely loved, and its 1983 finale remains the most-watched scripted television episode in history.

The thought of revisiting these TV classics is usually a thorny one. Products of their time, it’s not uncommon to stumble on episodes, plot lines, and characters that look more than a little problematic in hindsight – especially in terms of their treatment of LGBT+ characters. So, it’s not entirely unfair to be wary of the fact that, in 1974, a M*A*S*H episode addressed the hot topic of gay men in the military.

M*A*S*H was always a show with a “radically compassionate ethos” and this quote-unquote “gay” episode was indicative of that, telling a rather progressive and open-minded story – even if the ending wasn’t quite the boundary-breaking one the writers had in mind.

The season two episode was called “George” and it opens with the MASH unit treating a badly bruised George Weston (Richard Ely). After his recovery, George comes out – indirectly, but openly – to Hawkeye (Alan Alda). There’s no big reaction, there’s no hatred or discomfort, and there are jokes, but George isn’t the butt of them.

When others at the camp learn about George, their reactions are refreshingly unphased, with one exception.

The episode – written by John W Regier and Gary Markowitz –  makes sure its heroes treat George’s sexual identity as neither a problem nor even a novelty. It’s pretty astounding considering it aired a full 36 years before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The lone dissenting voice and driving force of the drama is Frank Burns (Larry Linville), a stern disciplinarian who frequently took on the role of M*A*S*H’s antagonist. He’s the only character to express any kind of homophobia toward George, and he does so under the guise of “following the rules” as he tries to have the gay soldier dishonourably discharged.

Hawkeye and Trapper’s (Wayne Rogers) scheming to help their friend leads to them buttering Frank up and coaxing him to admit he once cheated on a med school test. They then use this information as blackmail so that Frank won’t submit the discharge report, and prove that he has no room to judge anyone else.

It turns out, the writers initially had a different ending in mind. The original plan was to have Hawkeye and Trapper get Frank drunk, during which point the stringent major revealed that he once experienced sexual attraction for another man.

So, right, the intended ending does veer a little too closely to the overused stereotype that homophobic bullies are, themselves, secret closet cases. But its implications were unprecedented for the time in terms of gay representation on screen.

Still, the ending that aired is a fine final note for a truly landmark episode of television. LGBT+ characters were still few and far between, and they were so frequently the target of mean-spirited jokes – or worse. But with “George,” M*A*S*H presented a gay character on his own terms, and then showed its massive, mainstream audience what it means to be a thoughtful and supportive ally.

Bella Donna

19 September – 21 September, 7.30pm – 9.30pm – Kings Arms

Bella Donna is a comedy play at The Kings Arms, 11 Bloom Street, Salford M3 6AN on 19 September to 21 September at 7.30pm.

A girl’s night in with two disgruntled actors, the self-proclaimed Queen of Sass and several bottles of wine … what could possibly go wrong?

From Award-Winning Director and Playwright Laura J Harris comes an original queer comedy filled with unexpected twists, turns and more than its fair share of sass. Drag Artiste Extraordinaire and self-proclaimed Queen of Sass, Bella Da Balle, is in high spirits when her friend and flatmate, Donna Knight, returns home from a long day of auditions. Time to break out the wine and catch up on Bella’s love life (or lack thereof!).
 

When an unexpected guest appears at the door, it triggers a series of dramatic events that drastically alter the night’s trajectory. Surprising revelations surface throughout the evening that will put the bond of friendship between Bella and Donna to the ultimate test.

Brave, bold and beautifully bonkers!

Buy tickets here – £8.50 – £10.50 + Booking fee