“Toxic” at The Lowry Studio

Toxic is the hotly anticipated explosive new show from award-winning theatre maker Nathaniel J Hall (First Time, It’s A Sin), celebrating the survival and resilience of the queer spirit.

Following its sell-out debut at HOME in Manchester in 2023, actor, writer and HIV activist Nathaniel J Hall is taking his critically acclaimed second play, Toxic on tour from March 2025 to venues across the UK. Produced by Dibby Theatre, this hilarious and heartbreaking semi-autobiographical show is written and performed by Hall alongside Josh-Susan Enright.

Seventeen of us met up at The Lowry to watch the sold out play set in the hedonistic world of Manchester’s underground queer rave scene. Toxic tells the story of two people who, in their own words, ‘meet, fall in love, and f*ck it up.’ Born into Thatcher’s Britain of race riots and rampant homophobia and growing up in the shadow of AIDS and Section 28, the pair form a bond so tight, they might just survive it all. But sometimes survival means knowing when to leave.

Told through a heady mix of storytelling, movement, witty dialogue, original music and club visuals, this powerful and passionate play dares to pull back the glittery curtain of pride to reveal a place where many still suffer the impact of generational homophobia, racism, toxic gender norms and HIV stigma.

London’s first dedicated LGBT+ cinema

The Arzner, which proudly bills itself as London’s first dedicated LGBT+ cinema, is now fully up and running in 10 Bermondsey Square, London SE1 3UN.

Named after Dorothy Arzner, a pioneering lesbian filmmaker who became the first woman to direct a talkie with 1928’s Manhattan Cocktail, the cinema-cum-cocktail bar is independent and gay-owned. 

The programme is a mix of LGBT+ films representing everyone and camp classics. Going forward, they want to unearth some more obscure LGBT+ films that might be in need of restoration.

Among other films, on the bill recently was Jamie Babbit’s sapphic classic But I’m a Cheerleader, Gus Van Sant’s landmark My Own Private Idaho, and Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical Cabaret starring a luminous Liza Minnelli.

Minnelli is one of many gold-plated gay icons adorning the bar’s walls, while the cocktails are named after Hollywood legends like Rock Hudson, Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich. The sole cinema screen has plush red carpets and gleaming faux-leather seats: in contemporary parlance, it’s giving old Hollywood with a modern sheen. 

The Arzner is the brainchild of Simon Burke and Piers Greenlees, who also own The Rising, an LGBT+ pub in nearby Elephant & Castle that opened just under a year ago. The Arzner has taken over premises formerly occupied by Kino Bermondsey, an independent cinema that closed in January 2023.

During daytime hours, people with laptops sip flat whites under the watchful eyes of queer icons like Candy Darling and Katharine Hepburn. After dark, the cocktail bar offers a cosy alternative to London’s noisier LGBT+ bars and clubs.

The Arzner feels timely because authentic LGBT+ stories on film are finally starting to become more mainstream. But above all, London’s newest independent cinema wants to earn its stripes as a community space that fosters inclusivity and sparks conversations. 

Historically, so many LGBT+ stories told on film have been heart-wrenching with very sad endings. The Arzner will definitely be showing those films because they’re important, but they also want to find films that spread queer joy because that’s what the community needs right now.

Head to the website for programme info.

All photos by Jess Hand / Time Out

Make A Scene Film Club

Make A Scene Film Club is back! Two screenings are coming in the next two months! It’s a chance for Friends of Dorothy and their friends all to get together and watch and discuss fabulous films with a new monthly mid-week screening at Cultplex.

This is a place to re-discover or discover for the first time those films that make up the queer and camp canon. Each month there will be movies with an LGBT+ theme or ones that have been taken to heart by the community.

May’s film club screening is the hilarious The Birdcage which is programmed as a little tribute to great screen actor Gene Hackman who died in February.

The Birdcage – Wednesday, 7 May 7.00pm – (doors 7.00pm, film starts at 7.15pm)

Cultplex, First Floor, GRUB, 50 Red Bank, Cheetham Hill, Manchester M4 4HF

The Birdcage is the 1996 update of the seminal 1978 French queer comedy film La Cage aux Folles directed by Édouard Molinaro, based on Jean Poiret’s 1973 play about a middle-aged gay couple who run a drag nightclub whose lives become upended when their straight son is set to marry a girl from a conservative family.

Robin Williams and Nathan Lane play the gayest of gay soulmates and the late, great Gene Hackman stars alongside Diane Weist as the Republican senator and his wife who Williams and Lane try to hide their world of camp, glitter and sequins from as they visit their home above The Birdcage nightclub in Miami when the two families meet.

Come and enjoy this camp classic queer comedy which features Hank Azeria as a flamboyant house boy and culminates in musical numbers and Gene Hackman in full drag!

Click here for tickets.

A Single Man – Thursday, 26 June 7.00pm – (doors 7.00pm, film starts at 7.15pm)

Cultplex, First Floor, GRUB, 50 Red Bank, Cheetham Hill, Manchester M4 4HF

Based on the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novella A Single Man is a heart wrenching but uplifting first film from fashion designer Tom Ford. Ford takes the words of Isherwood (who is best known for his Berlin diaries that were the basis for the musical Cabaret) and turns them into the sort of perfectly put together, sexy and sumptuous concoction you would expect from one of his dresses or suits.

The film sees Colin Firth as George Falconer, a depressed gay British university professor living in Southern California in 1962 who – after the death of his partner in a car accident leaves him totally alone and back in the closet – decides this day will be the day he takes his own life.

George’s “last day on earth” sees him, strangely, at his most alive as he takes in every moment and connection – all beautifully shot by Ford – including an assignation with a young man in a parking lot and a visit to his best friend played by Julianne Moore for a drunken dance. Firth was Oscar nominated for the role and brims with inner life, all hidden behind his brittle British demeanour, framed by perfect Tom Ford thick rimmed glasses.

The film is deep, beautiful, sad and life affirming, soulful, romantic and gorgeous and a real jewel in the queer film canon.

Click here for tickets.

Hetty King

Winifred Emms (born on 21 April 1883 in New Brighton, Wallasey) is best known by her stage name, Hetty King.

She was an English entertainer who performed in the music halls as a male impersonator for over 70 years, having adopted the name, Hetty King, at the age of six. Her signature song was “All the Nice Girls love a Sailor”.

By around 1930, King was reputedly the highest-paid music hall star in the world. Much of her success was due to her painstaking observation of the mannerisms of such men as sailors and soldiers. She learned how to march, salute, light a pipe, and swing a kitbag of the right weight, so as to give the correct appearance of a man, while always ensuring that her femininity shone through, sometimes winking at the audience as if to let them in on the subterfuge.

Hetty King was a key contributor to the empowerment and advancement of women in comedy. She is ripe for a revival of interest and appreciation, as well as richly deserving, in the broader terms of comic history, of much greater prominence and respect.

All the nice girls loved Hetty, and all the nice boys ought to, too.