A two day symposium exploring the radical work of lesbian and gay theatre-makers in the 1970s – 80s and its resonance for LGBTQ+ artists and the wider culture today. 

From the first Gay Sweatshop plays that toured the country to audiences, some of whom had never before seen their experience represented on stage, to radical drag that lampooned narrow definitions of gender and sex roles, campaigning theatre that rejected outdated laws, lesbian high camp, and the first Black lesbian and gay theatre in Britain, the symposium will challenge narrow perspectives of LGBTQ+ theatre as a recent phenomenon. With panels, talks, slideshows, Q&As and a Long Table, alongside new work commissioned by early career artists in response to this earlier history, the Symposium will take a deep dive into this rich and too little-known history, and explore how it can inspire us today.

Friday evening (7.30pm) will also feature a rehearsed reading of Son of a Gun, originally developed by Sidewalk Theatre company in 1976. Based on Tash Fairbanks’ life as a working-class lesbian, and scripted by John Burrows, according to The Times reviewer that year, it ‘...charts the adventures of a mutinous nine-year-old to her emergence as a liberated lesbian squatter…’,  and was acclaimed by audiences and described by the Morning Star as a ‘…a minor epic…a sensitive, portrayal of a working-class girl who fights against being second best…funny, politically exciting, well observed.’