Hearts Unspoken; 1st Run

It was the strangest feeling. Normally once a show is up and running, a show I feel proud of, I enjoy this great, clean sense of floating for a little while, a pure and wholesome confidence. But as Hearts Unspoken came to the end of it's run this feeling never caught.

I've heard people say it is a white man's sickness.

It's been a month now since the show went up and I have to apologise for not writing anything on here since. It has been in part a matter of logistics; house moves, university courses starting and a bumpy ride setting up the internet. But also it has taken time to make sense of the sheer complexity of emotion that I felt as the play drew to a close.

Certain things must not be spoken of...

  

On the train back down to London I felt I understood Arthur Miller's comment that the worst part of writing a play was handing it over to the director. Whilst I may have been that director, there always comes a painful point when you realise you are no longer really needed and the actors and stage technicians have taken charge. But this is normal, why did I feel it so strangely dejected this time round?

 It’s a gay club, gay people come here!

After all a couple of days after the show closed I was writing an email to one of the interviewees about how things had gone, and was realising what a success it had been. We sold out our four night run, we gained two excellent and encouraging reviews (One in The Herald and one in The Scotsman). We had an excellent after show discussion with Patrick Harvie M.S.P., Sam Rankin of the Equality Network, Joe Brady of the Scottish Refugee Council and Max, a Glasgow based refugee. We also gained great audience feedback, from the forms returned 85% rated the show as highly engaging and informative. Perhaps the most important factor however was that we raised £330 for House of Rainbow and Iraqi L.G.B.T., which was brilliant and I have to thank everyone for their contribution.

The main gate of the house was locked and I was not allowed to leave.
Effectively I was being held captive there. 

Over the next couple of weeks as I began to see how in these last days of the run what was affecting me so badly was a feeling of finality, that this project was over, but by then I had realised that it is not over. I absolutely cannot stop pushing this play forward. Working on it, developing it and bringing the issues in to the public arena. 

 When I’m first coming in united kingdom
That time, you know you see
One baby born,

Me I think myself,
I have a new life
I was happy
Any bad thing they do me there
I forget it. 

A couple of days ago I met one of the guys I interviewed for the play. "Where is the pleasure in life if you're are not involved in a struggle?" he asked me, rhetorically. "And I have loved being part of this struggle," I said.

Your claim has been considered, but for the reasons give below it has been concluded you do not qualify for asylum.

On Friday I went along to House of Rainbow to give them the £165 donation.There is always something that moves me in the meeting I have attend at House of Rainbow. A member of the congregation shyly stood and sang a spiritual in a beautifully sonorous baritone, then the minister told us of one of their regular members is currently in detention, whilst he recently escaped deportation, a vast amount had to be done to aid him. Later a beautiful young woman stood up, and told us with a stunning smile, that she had just been awarded her papers this week thanks to the help House of Rainbow had given her. It was so powerful to see where the money is going to go. To see how spreading information and understand of LGBT asylum issues will help bring support to more and more people. And I think, for me, it gave me absolute clarity as to why I want to create work like Hearts Unspoken, and I enjoy that feeling.

When I think about Iraqi love,
I think about the little… fear,
The little bit of shyness when we meet…
That little romance when we smile to each other from a distance
and have that kind of shy look
and it takes time to meet.
In a culture where human interaction is more than just a touch,
is more just a smile,
a nice sit
have a shisha or have something
A warm chat about things and then this is where things develop.
And it’s very magical in away.
I know, it’s going to sound very romantic,
but it’s the secret beauty of life where you… you… you have certain magic about things…
That, you don’t want to loose.  

(Thanks to Colin and Rachel for the pictures)

Summary of the research process.

It is a mid April morning, and I am standing at the sink washing my porridge pan. One of those unpleasantly dull daily events, like waiting for the bus or scrapping out coffee grits, that rarely sticks in the memory. My phone starts to ring, I shake clammy oats from my hand and awkwardly answer with slippery fingers. A few seconds later the course of my life has changed in quite a momentous way. I, along with the conFAB organisation, have won funding to create a new piece of verbatim theatre based on interviews with gay male asylum seekers. With not one contact made the opening date, 7th September, seems horribly close.

Six months later, two weeks away from that date I cannot believe the number of new people I met, nor how incredible and moving the stories I have heard. I can't wait to reveal this production!

The research took place in Scotland and in London, though I met those who volunteered for the project through two very different processes. In Scotland, the help and support of the Scottish Refugee Council was instrumental. Even before we had received the funding their backing of the project had been extremely useful, and I am sure added weight to our application, but there remained the tension as to whether they could actually find anybody willing to loan their voice to this production. In London the route into meeting people was less certain, and began in the most unexpected of places; my dad's old English teacher, Hubert.

The I talked with him and his wife Jane in their perfectly English garden, eating delicious home cooked food, a month after we had received our funding. Jane worked with unaccompanied minors who had arrived in the U.K. to claim asylum, and we ran through her contact list trying to think of someone who might be a link into the LGBT side of things. We had nearly wrapped up, and with only a few tenuous connections to try when suddenly Jane sat up "Of course," she said, "Martin!"

I met Martin in a central London cafe the next week. In my widest dreams I could not have imagined such a helpful and incredible person. Not only did he appear to know numerous people who might volunteer, he appeared to know everyone who worked in LGBT asylum in London. His in depth knowledge on the cultural history of homosexuality around the world was fascinating and we connected over a belief that bringing the  heart-stopping nature of these stories to the public would make them sit up and listen. He put me in contact with three out of the five men who I interviewed for the show.

It struck me that just talking to people about the project would help me find my way in London; indeed I am also heavily indebted to Chris, a regular in the pub I was working in. He put me in touch with a friend who had been through the asylum process. We met in the same central London cafe, and whilst he never returned my calls to do an interview proper, the hour we talked was hugely insightful and I am grateful for the time he took to chat.

Midway through this process I spoke to Clea Langton at iceandfire theatre company, who specialise in human rights related verbatim work, who told me I should be looking to do a maximum of three to five interviews. Suddenly I started to panic, more and more names were coming forward, and the SRC emailed with 9 further people to talk to. How was I going to process all this into a one hour show with three actors?

It was fortunate that in reality of course many people didn't turn up or changed their mind. As the editing and writing process developed it became clear there was only room for three stories within the restrictions of time and scale. However everything expressed in my unused interviews was fascinating and useful, and they have inevitably influenced the show we have created. I must particularly thank Reverend Jide, for his passion for the project and  the afternoon he arranged to spend talking to him a few members of his congregation.

Other research highlights included my discussion with Sam Rankin of The Equality Network, the seminar event at SOAS and the emotionally fraught Q&A session with the UKBA at Mishcon de Raya.

I always said I wanted to create something that was more than just a campaign piece; whilst I believe the show will create debate I don't pretend to have the answers to the issues it raises. Instead this is a production that pays homage to complex beauty of sexuality, and the sheer force of will that those who have experienced persecution because of it must discover in order to live through and overcome their situation.


Some names have been changed to protect identities.

The House of Moon, The House of Electricity

If I arrived in this country and wanted to claim asylum, I would first have to attend a screening interview. This can happen at port or in country. So if I had managed to get here on a limited visa (such as student or tourist) or illegally, I would have to make my way to the one screening unit that actual is in country, situated on Wellesley Road Croydon. Here my claim would be registered, I would briefly explain my reasons (a difficult task for many traumatised torture victims and shamed LGBT individuals), and shortly after I would be ascribed my case owner who would later interview me fully and decide my fate. This morning I set out to visit this South London portal to freedom and a better life.


I am currently staying in North London, so imagining that I am perhaps with relatives in Archway I set out on the two hour journey south.  I took the underground to Highbury and Islington, before transferring to the Overground, simply because it was the most obvious option when looking at the underground map, without an in depth knowledge of bus routes and suburban rail systems. Croydon is an obscure location for such an important body, and even though the TFL website offered shorter ways of getting there than the one I took, every option involved at least three interchanges. By Shadwell the east London hipsters had mostly disappeared, the city scape became suburban, and then almost rural. Eventually the glass and concrete of Croydon's infamy poked into view.


I've never been to Croydon before. Emerging from the station and walking past the bus terminal it appeared to have the feel of a slightly wild boarder town. Many tongues and ethinicities crowded the narrow pavements, and grubby cafes sold the world's foods amongst cheap ikea furniture. I rounded the corner on to Wellesley Road, which sprang like up like a grey Soviet vision of Las Vegas.

The UK Border Agency building was the first on the opposite side of the road. I ducked through the underpass and found myself in front of Lunar House. I often wonder at the logic of naming these buildings. Why Lunar? Was it a reference to the sheer greyness of the place, or an attempt at a playful pun on it being the potential gateway for it's visitors to a new and distant world.

            

 

I realised I had forgotten my camera, but then reassessed this as perhaps a good thing as I surreptitiously snapped away with my phone (though what if it had been some essential piece of documentation or ID I had forgotten for my one chance meeting). The entrance lobby was small, and a security guard stood on the door asking those that attempted to enter what they were doing there. The centre largely requires an appointment, though they do allow walk-ups as well but from their advice on the website you would be risking a wasted journey to rely on it. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get in on the basis of "observing for a play I'm writing," and I wasn't sure what I'd have done had I gained access. I strolled round the the building, taking in it's various brutalist aspects, though wasn't witness to anything more alarming than a postal van.

Having completed my circuit I settled on an anti-barrage block the surrounded the plaza outside. A handful of families and couples of various nationalities stood around clutching pieces of legal paper and entertaining the children (who are also required to come for the screening interview). The atmosphere seemed calm, and there were no signs of the group4 vans ready to carry applicants off to detention the second their claim had been made (as happened to one of my interviewees), which would occur if the decision to "fast track" was taken.

I wondered what to do next. Helpfully a game solicitor, her client and an interpreter rocked up next to me and began loudly discussing their case. The solicitor was warm and supportive, and actual sounded excited about the imminent arrival of some new medical documents. I took in the applicants face; it seemed placid at first, passive in a system that was too big for her and she stared out calmly into the traffic. Again there was no anguish, but then it stuck me; this is the screening centre, the journey for this woman was just beginning and it was in fact the dreamy face of hope. Again a pre-conception was shattered; the building was drab and imposing, but for those make their journey here it was the beginning of a new life, full of potential and freedom. 

The trio broke up and moved on. I decided to get a closer look inside the building, so did a few fly pasts peering in at the reception area. It was clean and brightly lit, with cordons to manage the queues, and looked like security or immigration at any standard airport. Two doors led away from the reception area, the one on the right channelling "Temporary and permanent immigration" and the one on the left for "Protection," the door through which any asylum seeker applying in country would have to pass. It is perhaps however because all immigration is handled from here, including spousal immigration, etc (the right hand door) that explains the clean corporate acceptability of the place.

I knew there was a second UKBA building on the road, this time called "Electric House," and a quick Google search on my mobile revealed it to be the local sign in centre for applicant and failed asylum seekers. One of my interviewees had brought up this aspect of the process as one of the most frightening of his time as a claimant, as could have been snatched up and detained any time he went report. I made my way back through the underpass, bought a ropey lunch in the Sainsbury's on the other side of the road and went to seek it out.

The building was older and shabbier, with the world "Electricity" emblazoned across the top like an old cinema or ballroom. Grim faced UKBA staff in black uniforms drew on tabs outside looking like smokers at a gangsters funeral. I took a seat on the steps, a rather strange picnic location over looking the duel carriage way, but a good place to observe. 

An agency man walked past me, the whole way he carried himself and even held his can of energy drink was stiff with machismo, he looked like a bouncer in at a nightclub you wouldn't want to go into. Indeed all the staff that gathered had a tired, unbending, brittleness to their movements; slow, self-righteous and cynical. But then these are the people for whom the idea of protecting our boarders often overwhelms the idea of humanitarian protection. Whilst lefty do-gooders like me write plays, run inclusive community projects and tut over The Guardian, the dull form reading, interrogation and rubber stamping is left to those who happen to have fallen into the job or have developed a personal mandate to restrict and control immigration. The gloom that hovered over the building was in stark contrast to the screening unit over the road. 

I trotted round to the public entrance. Tatty signs were stuck to the window with yellowing sellotape informing reportees that they will not be allowed access if they have forgotten their papers, and the guards standing round the metal detectors were quick to launch suspicious looks in my direction. If Lunar House represents the new hope of an arrival before they had been turned into an "asylum seeker" this place represented the grinding system that attempts to turn them into a helpless, social pariah and Daily Mail bate.

I turned the corner expecting to have seen the last of what I could gain access to, but there remained one last sight; a large gate in the side of the building that was clearly designed for vehicle access to a central court area. However the gate was blocked by an "airlock" similar to prisons. Beyond the gate to the street was a massive black panel door topped with rows of jagged spikes. 

This was the gate that those who had been caught at the sign in would be passed through on the way to detention or enforced deportation. Maybe some of my interviewees who had been detained in London had passed through it. I walk quickly past having taken a photo, but then something caught me, and I returned back down the street. I looked up at those fists of black spikes that protruded from the lintel, and suddenly felt quite emotional. It is one of the thesis of the play that the threat of deportation to a country where violence maybe carried out against a person, is in fact a continuation of that system of violence. Those spikes may never have touched human flesh but they were potent symbols of pain, torture and persecution.

No one can pretend that people don't fake asylum claims. It was an interesting feature of the interviews I carried out that many harbour a greater resentment to those fakers than they do to the UKBA as they justify their processes. But according to the website the UKBA accept on average 19 out of every 100 applications, which for all the troubles in the world seems a remarkably small number. The first paragraph on the asylum homepage reads;

The UK has a proud tradition of providing a place of safety for genuine refugees. However, we are determined to refuse protection to those who do not need it, and will take steps to remove those who are found to have made false claims.

Which is almost like receiving a party invitation that reads;

You are invited to the house warming party of Adam and Jane Smith. However, those who get drunk, turn up with out a gift or in any other way behave inappropriately will be immediately ejected. 

What a welcome! The website continues down a warren of interlinked pages regarding process, rights and documentation all with a sensible officialdom but belying a steely inhumanity eg;

If we provide your housing, you will not be able to choose where you live. You will be sent to wherever suitable housing is available in the UK.

The whole system is designed to be as inflexible, inconvenient and depressing as possible and it is known from experience that the UKBA send people back to face hostile circumstances in their home country. The asylum mechanism is deeply flawed, as is so much in society, on the basis of simply not listening to each other and bending to the pressure of the ill informed, self interest of the media and the politically manipulative. What excites me about this production is that it allows a little space to hear those voices, and I hope that those who may come to the production with certain pre-concived ideas based on reportage of the issues, will come to some understanding of the humanity that lies behind them.

I returned to the station and for all that my time in Croydon was very brief the images of a hopeful face and a black gate, fortified with the instruments of torture, created a powerful juxtaposition that seemed to symbolise the entire asylum system itself.

Explict Material; I visit a Sex Club.

11pm on Sunday night, and I find myself on Charing Cross concourse a little drunk and chowing down a burger in the fluorescent depression of Burger King. In my final week in London I'm planning on taking a few field trips to locations that bare some relevance to the show, such as the Croyden reception centre and Club Kali. But tonight, as the booze is making me a little braver, I decide to check out one of London's sex clubs.

Raw sex can often seem a little off the agenda for all the 'queering of hetronormativity' intellectualism, 'right to love' romanticism and sanitised image consciousness of the mainstream gay scene. I often think of it as the Will and Grace effect where gay men are intelligent, well dressed and witty gal's best friends, but where the lube stained bed sheet, nipple yanking and dirty towel to wipe it all up after, stay well off stage. The right for a man to lie with a man is surely the very kernel of LGBT rights whether they love each other or just fancy a shag. But is that all it is? One of the guys I interviewed told me of a mother disgust when she heard her son was gay; to give up family and an accepted place in his society for what? To get fucked?

The impulsive decision having been made I wiped the mayonnaise from my face, gubbed a couple of chewing gums and descend into the underground. The train was surprisingly busy for so late on a Sunday. London suddenly seemed ripe for adventure and I could hear Neneh Cherry whispering "Here in the night, love takes control/ Making me high, making me whole" from Pulp's seedy ballad of sexual noir "Seductive Barry;"

I'd been sex clubs before, and was rather surprised to find myself on a more than salubrious street in a very well heeled neighbourhood in central London. In Birmingham you had to leave the bright lights of the gay district behind to find a tattered rainbow flag flapping amongst the warehouses and light industry of Digbeth, whilst in Zagreb all I knew was to ring the buzzer for "Dennis" at a soot stained tenement. Here the houses were extremely expensive and the street almost scrubbed white. None the less I scanned the basement windows, expecting to find only the merest indication of the streets dirty little secret, but again was surprised to find the door wide open onto the pavement and looking like a friendly local bar.

At the bottom of the stairs a small window nestled next to a security door. As I descended I could hear men's voices that made the place sound relatively busy, and almost ludicrously cliched HI-NRG music pounding away. A little sense of danger and trepidation returned. The office behind the window was empty and I spent a few moments wondering if there was a buzzer I should press. Eventually someone came out, and I slipped through into the main bar space.

The bar area was large and metallic, and smelt strongly of detergent. It was also freezing cold thanks to a powerful air-con. A handful of men stood at the bar chatting, whilst others stood on their own furtively nursing their drink.

"There was no one at the door." I told the barman, who was gamely adding a note of youthful sexiness to the otherwise drab surroundings, wearing a tight white vest and tiny running shorts. He looked at me annoyed and gestured to another man who told me to come back to the door, again with irritation that I should have somehow got in. He took my £6 and gave me a drinks voucher. A third man took my bag and placed it in a crate in a back room. He was topless, but his sallow body made him appear deeply seedy.

I returned to the bar, where the barmen took my token in exchange for a beer with minimal interaction. Apart from the smell and the porn showing on flat screen T.V.'s it could have been a bad night in any other gay bar in town. I looked around at the other men. They were mostly older, and I couldn't say I felt remotely attracted to any of them, but then none were paying me any attention either, so I sat, sipping my beer feeling invisible. Behind me a cavernous opening, hung across with a chain-mail curtain, gave out into the area where I assumed you would find the darkrooms and sex dungeons. The topless man emerged carrying a mop and bucket. In the interests of research I decided to go and investigate.

The row of booths were empty as far as I could tell, though the burly man following close behind me seemed to want to remedy that. I felt a little threatened, but kept my slow, curious pace. At the end of the corridor two men were kissing hungrily, but they returned to the bar shortly after I did so nothing much could have happened.

I returned to my seat. A new porn film was starting; the startlingly young faces of it's stars shown in close up, with their ridiculous sounding names captioned below. The man from the door called last orders, and I motioned the barman for another beer. He handed me an unopen can of 1664, but I left a pound on the tip tray regardless. He suddenly perked up when he came to retrieve it.

"Are you having a good night?"
"It's okay. I was just in town and I'd heard this place was interesting."
"Well, it's kind of quiet tonight but you should come back tomorrow. Then it's naked night, if your brave enough."

I thought about all the guys in there seeing me naked, and seeing all them naked too. I'm not sure which appealed less.

"Do you do it?" I asked.
" I just wear shorts, but I have to go topless." That was all the chat I got from him, a pound clearly didn't go far.

I watched the porn. Three guys; one on his back, legs in the air, the other two taking a hole each. The one in the mouth touched the body of the prone boy with a gesture of "I've-got-you-exactly-where-I-want-you" power, full of himself. I thought about the relationship I dream of being in; hiking up mountains in the rain, smiling on long journeys, no need to impress each other, to be comfortable in silence, to be attracted to each other but be in love with more than that, for sex to be an expression of deeply held feelings, a need to be one. The camera zoomed in on one of the guys cumming, repeating it again in slow motion, a eulogy to a  perfectly everyday ejaculation. I smile to myself. I can do that on my own, I think.

A man whispered in my ear, "Gorgeous." He was not unattractive, but the proposition that lay behind his compliment repelled me. The aggressive tongue in the mouth, the grabbing, the spunking up on the floor to be wiped up by the strong smelling detergent, I decided I like my sex a little more hopeful. "Thanks" was all I could reply. I went to collect my bag and set out to leave.

I felt strangely happy as I left, leaving behind the oppressive atmosphere. For me at least homosexuality is about more than fucking or getting fucked, it's about an emotional need that can somehow only be filled by another man, for whatever strange and mysterious reason. I am happy to wait untill I meet someone who can potentially fill that rather than a stranger in the dark, and when it comes I'll be happier still. I'm sure those who attend the club are searching for something similar in whatever way, but to say more than that would be hopeless conjecture.

And I will not be going to naked night.

QX Article

QX Magazine Asylum Article

QX is a funny little magazine. Each week it's pages are chock full of air brushed party boys hanging out in Vauxhall and Soho, pulling duck faces and looking up into the camera. But whilst this is the reason a majority of its readership come scuttling into the bar to grab their free copy, it also has a fair amount of devotion to topics such as politics and queer history, as well as being an avid supporter of gay theatre in the city. If I'm honest they can seem a little dry compared to the constant intellectual freshness that you can often find in Attitude. It's writing tends to suffers from the same problem I find in much of the political reporting in the gay press, in that it is rather editorial and lacks human heart or interest, or doesn't give much indication of how we as readers might be able offer support or lend pressure on the issue. I, like many of the reader I'm sure, tend to be guilty of skipping the pages with lots of writing on, not because I don't sympathise but because they end up reading as moaning and tutting, and turn into rather a frustrating experience. That said, this weeks article on the asylum system and it impact on LGBT individuals is a good overview, and the writer's admission of his own ignorance places him in a good place for the casual reader. It shocks me speaking even to members of our own LGBT 'community' (in as much as that exists!) how rife the opinion that 'these people' want something that it ours and somehow do not qualify for the same level of humanitarian protection simply through accident of birth. QX has a massive readership, and whilst I am sure only a fraction of those will get through the article is great that the issues is being discussed so publicly in such sympathetic terms.

Drafting

It strange after such an active and social research and development process to have found myself alone, locked in my room for four weeks trying to pin down the final script. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, this part of the process has been the most self searching and revealing in terms of my own artistic concerns.

I'm fairly new to script writing. I've put together scripts before for small projects as a student, but never with so much material or responsibility to tell the stories I had been provided with. In addition the process of draft- feedback- reflection- re-draft was one that I had to discover. I'm a little embarrassed by how defensive I got about my first draft, without realising that it would take a couple of weeks for me to really consider the feedback I was given so I could re-approach the script more objectively.

But perhaps the biggest discovery was the elucidation of the real reason behind my desire to do the project. This was a particularly powerful revelation, as it allowed me to see the reasoning behind all my concepts and ideas for future projects and indeed past pieces of writing. I realised that these are not things that are separate from me, but that they all grow from a deeply routed subjective stand point. In Hearts Unspoken, and in everything else I "create", I am in fact exploring some part of myself. As far as Hearts Unspoken is concerned that means the outsider status that being gay in a heterosexual world places upon me. This understanding is exciting, as a clarifies for me what parts of myself I am mining when developing a project, but it also allowed me to be more objective. In re-drafting I could make see than in a couple of cases I wasn't telling the interviewees story, or was missing a major part of it, as I highlighted only the parts that reflected or mirrored my own feelings and experiences, albeit in a far more extreme fashion.

However now it is pretty much done. There are still tweaks to be made and many unanswered questions around staging, but it is important to leave those open as we enter rehearsal. It's quite amazing when I look back to April and I had no idea who I was going to meet, or what the stories would be, or how they would fit together. Now I have a script I feel proud of and excited by and I leave behind a research process that has been one of the most inspiring and fascinating periods of my life so far.

London Road and why I ♥ Verbatim.

Having topped off my first draft of the play on Wednesday, I decided to award myself a rest day. Despite promising Rachel and Wendy (the assistant director) the first look, on Wednesday evening I went to my parents flat in North London and read what I had written so far. My dad had reacted to the idea of listening to a reading with fidgety wariness, but said he was gripped within the first two pages, so I was delighted by their reaction. Again I am thank for their extremely useful feedback.

The next morning I walked across Hampsted Heath, and wended my way home to Brixton. In my flat I found my desire to re-approach the script to start tinkering and fine tuning somewhat lacking, so headed back in to central London. I wondered round, got my haircut, went to the bar I work in to take in it's new Boudoir-esque interior, but felt a little at a loose end. Eventually I found myself crossing the Thames and heading towards the South bank, the National Theatre looming into view. Someone had recommended to me London Road recently, a new verbatim musical by Alecky Blyth, who is apparently quite the leader of the pack in terms of verbatim innovation, so on a sudden whim I decided to check it out and managed to bag a £5 standing ticket.

I haven't been particularly lucky in my theatre-going of late. The feeling of being bored in a theatre is one of the worst, and so far this year I have been bored by shallow stylised surrealism, empty verbosity, and heavy handed direction in a number of overlong production. Therefore the 2hr and 10 minute running time made me a little nervous, however when I left the theatre at quarter to ten truly excited by the subtly and texture Blythes play and indeed by the verbatim technique.

The play is based not so much on interviews, but more recordings of Blythe's time spent with the residents of London Road in Ipswich during the period when serial killer Steve Wright was on his spree and the period following. Therefore we get to attend meetings by the neighborhood watch group and an "in bloom" prize giving, as well hearing traditional interviews done in a verity of locations from people houses, to cafes and the local shopping precinct. What make the show particularly unique is that the material Blythe collated has all been set to an "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" style musical score, with every "um," "y'know" and "yeah, yeah, yeah" intact.

The great thing was that everything that at first appeared a problem to me, eventually became a strength. The fringy set, which at first seemed a little cheep and dingy, actually gave the Cottesloe theatre the warm feeling of a community production; this might be an amateur show that the interviewees are participating in. The lack of focus on Wright himself, and only one brief scene that focused on surviving local prostitutes, at first seemed to miss the dramatic heart of the matter but in the end the focus on the unheard voices of the local community gave them both their voice and show's unique character. Personally I found the music a little too populist for my taste, but it perfectly suited the subject matter and characters. "Are we meant to feel that we're celebrating the area being cleared of prostitutes?" Asked a friend I met after the show, and again this may seem a little ideologically suspect, but I actually admired the way Blythe took an entirely ambivalent stance on the matter. "This was an event that happened and this is the effect on the people who live locally," the show appeared to say,  and left us to decide what we made of the curiously positive effect it had on galvanising the community.

There was perhaps a slightly uncomfortable feeling of laughing at the people who had given up their time to be interviewed. People's accents, relationships and bumbling speech could all seem a little caricatured for all the apparent accuracy of their presentation, yet on the whole we were invited to warm to them, and perhaps some of the laughter was through recognising parts of ourselves on stage.

Ultimately I left feeling both entertained and full of thought, which is a rare combination, and inspired by the manner in which this verbatim production had done exactly what interests me in the genre. It places real human experience in the framework of an art/theatre and asks us to question it meaning for us a human beings.

I walk the three miles home in the balmy night air, and googled "Alecky Blythe" as soon as I got in, finding this fascinating  and helpful interview; Alecky Blythe on her unique verbatim plays . I was particularly jealous to hear of her 14 month interview period and 8 months writing and editing, as I have dealt with my own 6 month period in which to do everything! Regardless, as I set out to work  on my own script today I feel both confident in what I have drawn together and the practice of verbatim work producing stunning theatre.

From interview to script; reflections on the process so far...

My ability to update this blog has been restricted in recent weeks by the tedious but highly necessary process of transcribing the interviews. In all I collected five interviews, four with individuals and one with a group of six. In total this added up to around 8 ½ hours of interview material. As a rookie it took me around an hour to transcribe ten minutes of interview, which gives some indication of how long the process took. Yet having the interviews fully transcribed is really quite essential, for reasons I will explain below.

Last week I met with three actors to start turning these interviews into a script. It is always fun working with actors, and for all the seriousness of the subject matter having fun is key factor in making the process productive. People need to feel able to experiment, take risks and feel supported in that. Having a break for a cup of tea and a chat about common interests outside of the script is therefore as much part of the process as the serious read-throughs and improvisations, as it is by far the most effective way of building trust. The week was fully focused on script development.  We touched on staging ideas but as the full final cast wasn’t available there was no point in pinning things down yet. It was more about knowing that a theory or idea had the potential to become a fully fledged staging during the rehearsal process in August. As such the actors did one hell of a lot of reading; trying this section with that section, trying it again with further cuts, exploring how broken up the speeches and narratives should be. Having the pressure to write up, edit and cut every evening so the actors had something new to try the next day, was tremendously useful for me. A process that may have taken weeks took days, simply through being able to hear how things were working and seeing the project as a whole.

Another very useful  few hours were spent developing a degree of dramatic adaptation from one section of the interviews. This particular interview lent itself well to this kind of adaptation, due to the number of figures and conversations the interviewee described. Yet prior to the development week I had sat in front of my computer having no idea how to go about this. I therefore felt like I was asking a lot of the actors to simply improvise scenes based on the interview, with only a few scenic guidelines (i.e. what happens in the scene and what information needs to be put across). I felt like I was going to make them rather vulnerable, but this is where the importance of the trust we had as a group came into play and in reality I needn’t have worried. The first time round the actors stumbled through the scenes in as cheerfully chaotic manner as could have been expected. But without saying much, a second attempt began to establish a rough structural framework and started to produce some interesting and subtle dialogue. Watching it I was becoming quickly aware of what each little scene needed to lift it to a level where it would work within the context of the whole play. Sitting down that evening to write up the dialogue I felt far more confident in the what I was doing.

By Friday we had just over 90 minutes of material to share with a small guest audience. Yet my feeling, looking at the paper that represented the script covering to floor in little piles, was that I was still faced with a large and rather unmanageable thing that was going to take a lot of strong arming to get it to fit into a tight and succinct piece of theatre. Rather like being faced with a bilious sleeping bag that is supposed to fit into a six inch  square stuff sack. Here though the audiences feedback and comments were enormously useful. I now have two weeks off work to pull together a first draft proper, but feel my task has been make a lot easier, and I must particularly thank Rachel and Maxwell for their contributions.

Here though are some further points that I will take account the next time and recommend to anyone who is interesting in making this kind of work.

Interviews

• Meet your interviewees first for a coffee and a chat about the nature of the project, and hold the interview within the next seven days. Not meeting people first is awkward at best, and threatening at worst. Equally however every time we agreed to hold an interview in over a weeks time, the interview never happened as people got on with their lives and forgot about it.

• In the initial meeting talk about the project and some general issues, but don’t get too far into the interviewees story. If a good relationship built up quickly between us the interviewee was often quick to start sharing and made many interesting points, but then in the interview proper it is hard to recapture these with the same freshness as you are going over things that you already know, so it feels artificial

• Activists are generally the most happy to talk, and are used to sharing their experiences and have strong opinions, making for lively and productive interviews. It’s a brave decisions for a private individual to talk, respect their boundaries and be very aware of the emotive nature of what you asking them to discuss.

• If someone decided they don’t want to be interviewed or stops returning your calls don’t push it. It’s their story, their life and ultimately their decision. We are theatre makers trying to make socially responsible and mutually beneficial work, not News of the World reporters.

• Everyone is different and you have to be responsive to get the most from people and make them feel comfortable. Some people wanted to see the questions beforehand, and that requires them to be quite well formed. My preferred option was to simply bring along topic headings, and allow interviewees to choose how to define that and what they want to say. But you have to be aware of what questions are contained within each topic so if someone is struggling to know what to talk about you can be more targeted.

• Some people will happy discuss their lives with very little input from you, but sometimes a more conversational tone, in which I shared a lot of my own life experiences, was more productive. This was nice as I want to build a genuine and lasting friendly relationship with each interviewee, as I am hugely grateful to their contribution and would love them to continue in giving feedback throughout the project.

• Listen! On a number of occasions I listen back to an interview and realised I had not asked them to expand on a potentially important point.

• Make sure you understand peoples narrative and ask them to clarify things if you don't.

• Be completely clear on how you will use the material. This is an area I somewhat lacked in this time round, as I was speaking theoretically, I didn’t warn people I may not use their material at all (as has happened) whilst assuring them that their time and experience will be useful to the project as a whole.

• This point I make above leads me to my next point on interviews. Don’t do too many. When I spoke to iceandfire theatre company, who regularly do this work, they said three to five interviews will be enough. Ultimately I interviewed nine people but to create a focused script, with three actors, without too much character swapping, only six of those voices are used.

• People will have a lot of opinions about what they want the show to be, and how they think it should be used. Obviously you need to make the project useful to them, as it they are essentially investing in it so don't get prickly about it, but also you need to be firm on your own focus and remind people that there are a lot of interests that have to be balanced.

Script

• Transcribe everything. It’s tedious but to have the whole interviews laid out before you when it comes to editing is essential. At the points where I tried to be lazy and skip bits, I would listen through a few minutes then its potential would suddenly strike me and I would have to go back anyway. The pressures of time meant I didn’t have everything transcribed by the development week and ultimately these where the interviews didn’t get used. You can’t work with the recording in the same way.

• Equally paraphrasing the interviews will lose the uniqueness of the speaker voice and their emotional state. The time will come when you need to tidy things up into more theatrical language but this won't be apparent till you have worked with actors. An example of this is when one interviewee described how he would have killed himself if he did not have a boyfriend who supported him through his time in detention. As we read that section of interview each repartition and stutter became incredibly moving, and adds to the stories already innate power.

• Narrative is best. By the end of the development week it is the three most fully described narratives that form the back bone of the show, broken up by three single speeches from three other interviews (all from the group interview).

• Don’t add things that simply demonstrate an idea, rather than developing main narrative points. One speaker told a short but shocking story about racism on the gay scene, but  trying to fit it in it just seemed out of place and tokenistic. You can’t cover every issue in an hour.

• A focus; I entered the development week without a clear idea of what the focus of the play was. A lot of the speakers had experienced repression on the basis of religion, and I thought this and their relationship with faith might be it. I therefore drew together various comments on this to form part of the end of the play. But Rachel said this seemed unfocused, essentially meaning it appeared to come from no where given what had gone before. On the plane home to London however it suddenly struck me what the focus of the play we had created was; the play draws parallels between the persecution people experience as gay men in their home country, to the persecution they experience here as asylum seekers. This seems to be a powerful point, and I am glad it has emerged from the material rather than trying to force something on it from the beginning.

• If you have too many interviews for the time and number of actors to deal with you have to cut some of them. This is painful, but you will end up with a confusing, overstuffed mess if you don’t and that serves no purpose to anyone.

• Having a lot of material is good, because you have a lot to choose from, but it also means you have more to cut. I’m really sad at how many fascinating insights and stories aren’t going to be in the final script.

• For any subject matter like this there has to be something positive to end on. Maxwell, a refugee himself, was particularly keen to make this point. I don’t want to give away how I plan to do this now, but I feel confident in making something magical and powerful for the audience to go away with.

The Seductive Voice of Cruel Reason.

To attend a panel discussion on UK asylum and be told the "Director of Asylum for the UKBA" is on the panel, is bit like attending a discussion on Good and Evil to discover Satan is on the panel; the dark heart of the matter is sat there in front of you. On standing Bill Brandon corrects his introduction and explains he is merely the deputy director, so we are really in the presence of Mephistopheles, but his seductive, reasoned words still trick me along for a while. The event is "LGBT Asylum; In conversation with the UK boarder agency" held in the lofty beige and golden sanctum of Mishcon De Raye (what mysterious sounding words they are), a very posh legal firm in Holborn (the soap in the bathroom has a little information tag on who designed it).

Sitting there at the table like a bull frog, he looks like a man bolstering himself with arrogance in preparation for incoming attack, but when he stands he speaks with an affable, burble of a sensible man just trying to do the right thing.

All UKBA workers are aware of the seriousness of there decisions he tells us, and if their decisions are poor it is not from any Malice [my friends]. And since the supreme court ruling, the government and reports by the UKLGIG and Stonewall have applied just a little pressure recently the UKBA is realising the error of its ways on LGBT asylum claims, and has spent the last year (for it has only been a year since the practice of deportation on the advice of living with "tolerable discretion" has been discredited) changing it's whole way of thinking on the issue. Well, how forward thinking and pro-active the UKBA are!

 A new test, created with allegiance with Stonewall, is now being applied; a more sensitive test to ascertain whether people are indeed homosexual, and training is in place to ensure stereotyping attitudes are overcome. However the journey is just beginning. More country of origin information needs to be gathered, and better records management of LGBT asylum claims. And yes, the Croyden reception center is extremely unpleasant and it is a huge ask to make[/force] people to explain their full story in front of a total stranger in such an environment. BUT we are trying, he tells us, and we must create more understanding between us (referring to the legal practice and activists who make up the audience). Well all that sounds jolly good then. An LGBT asylum seekers in ten to fifteen years time can maybe even expect an excellent level of service. What a shame about all the ones before.

The next speaker is from an organisation called Elop, a mental health charity that often helps deeply distressed asylum seekers. She tells us stories that are depressingly familiar to me now; parental abuse, torture, burnings and murders. And here the difficult paradox begins to reveal itself of the legal service/UKBA process against the raw, unmanageable reality of peoples lives. Brandon had talked of seeking "robust" processes; fair in their even application but utterly inflexible. The academic at SOAS had pointed out how description, mapping and catgorisation failed to truly reflect humanity as it quickly became to solid. Here the solidity of a process takes on a more deadly urgency; how can a fixed legal process accommodate the vast range of suffering and unpredictable human experience it is expected to deal with.

As a layman you realise that the legal world has no room for simple empathy or the benefit of the doubt. Everything must be evidenced and be streamed through official process; de jure over de facto. In the introduction to the evening a lawyer from the firm spoke about receiving a request to sign the petition for Betty Tibakawa, but thought better of it because she herself had not seen the evidence (http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-deportation-of-betty-tibakawa-home-office-ref/sign.html). The need for officialdom become extremely problematic when dealing with the Country of Origin reports. Brandon tells us that there is a body of thirty researchers responsible for creating these documents, yet as Jide for House of Rainbow (who is also in attendance) points out, the knowledge of evidence as to how gay people are treated around the world can be found very easily through testimony of country men, through websites and multiple other sources. The need for information only to be accessed thorough a single document from a single official body with no first hand experience and to define the LGBT experience as common amongst all LGBT people living in that country, is doomed to fail those whose cases it should support.

The next significant speaker is from Stonewall, and I am surprised by how negatively she is received by activists, and she reveals them to be a far from radical body. Questioning needs to shift (and has) from focusing on homosexuality being something you do, to something you are, she explains. She makes a nice example of the fact that as a virginal teenager she was still just as gay as she is as an adult with a same-sex partner and a major role in an LGBT organisation, but how would that have been assessed. This is what riles the activists amongst the audience. Why should their sexuality be assessed at all? It should be given the benefit of the doubt that people are, and then it is the risk to their person that should be assessed. Brandon is begin to bristle by this point of the of the Q&A session (I'm jumping about in the chronology of events here), "Well if we give LGBT people the benefit of the doubt, why not torture victims and people who have been trafficked?" He scoffs, and he begins to look increasingly repellent. WELL WHY THE HELL NOT? These humiliating and degrading processes are by in large irrelevant, when surely the question of what happened is less important that what would happen if people were returned. If a claimant is lying, one audience member says, this will gradually make itself obvious over the course of the legal process rather than the process beginning on the assumtion that the claiment is lying. After all, he goes on to point out, other EU countries do give the benefit of the doubt to LGBT claimants. Brandon response telling us that isn't true in Hungary. 

Brandon becomes increasingly defensive over the course of the Q&A session, his head turning bright red, at one point he erupts into anger that all the questions are being addressed to him. "Can you explain,"
asks one man, "why during my asylum claim interview my phone was taken from me, and I had my text messages read to see if any were from guys I had been sleeping with?"
"That shouldn't have happened," he snaps, "If it did happen, which I'm not saying it didn't. I'm not commenting"
Questions keep coming at him; why was my client asked when was the first time you committed "buggery," what do you have to say about the Cardiff whistleblowing scandal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8496759.stm), and the to top it off a woman asks how tabs are kept on the future of returned asylum seekers because she is in contact with a Lesbian lady from Nigeria who has been beaten and hounded from every place she has tried to settle.
Brandon's response is beyond belief "We do not return people to places where they are in danger... or at least we try not... no we don't keep tabs... if you know something then it's up to you to tell us." The writing of this comment can hardly convey the level of distain that lay behind it, there was no mention of the process of how this lady was meant to tell the UKBA of her contacts fate.

Maybe, from Brandon's earlier talk, the UKBA is trying to change it's attitudes, but this still seems theoretical as a culture amongst its ground corps still appears to exist of deep hostility to claimants; jobs-worths with a little Englander attitude and a driving philosophy of "we don't want you here in this country." I think Brandon expected to be celebrated at this meeting, but his clear responses to the questions posed revealed the UKBA to either be out of control of its staff, or deliberately blind to their behavior, or both.

"Fundamentally, there needs to be a change in international attitudes on sexuality." Said the woman from Stonewall. I wrote this down in capitals in my book as it was forming the core philosophy of my outlook on the issue, but in witnessing the speed at which Brandon jumped on this as an easy way out of dealing with questions related to the immediate safety of claimants made me realise it was just that... an easy way out, Utopian and academic. This relentlessly intense evening gave made me feel suddenly very small in the face of the issue. I felt jittery as I left the hall, and missed my tube interchange as I was so lost in thought. There is a new anger and a new energy behind what I am doing now. With just a few interviews left to do I cannot wait to begin the creation of this piece.

UKBA bring shame on this country...

From The Guardian's website;

A Ugandan woman who was branded with a hot iron in her home country as a punishment for her sexuality, is facing forced removal from the UK.
Last week, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said that the coalition had ended the practice of deporting people to countries where they face persecution because of their sexual orientation.
But Betty Tibikawa, 22, who is detained in Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in Bedford, is awaiting removal directions after her asylum claim was refused.
Human rights organisations have consistently documented abuses against gay men and lesbians in Uganda and say that it's one of the most dangerous countries in the world for gay people.
Tibikawa had just finished high school and was due to go to university in Kampala when she was attacked by three men who taunted her about her sexuality. They pinned her down in a disused building and branded her on her inner thighs with a hot iron. They left her unconscious and when she finally managed to get home she was confined to bed for two months. An independent medical report has confirmed that her scars are consistent with being branded with a hot iron.
"I can't sleep and I'm having terrible nightmares about what will happen to me if I'm sent back to Uganda. My family have disowned me because I'm a lesbian and I'm convinced I'd be killed if I'm sent home.
"I was 'outed' in a Ugandan magazine called Red Pepper in February of this year saying that I'm wanted for being a lesbian," she said. "This has put my life at increased risk."
Another Ugandan lesbian, BN, was due to be removed from the UK in January but her removal was halted following intervention by her lawyers. Her case is due to be heard in the court of appeal in July.
David Kato, a gay Ugandan activist, was murdered earlier this year. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. An anti-homosexuality bill calling for more punitive measures against gay people was due to be voted on by the Ugandan parliament last week but was not discussed. It could be brought before parliament again later in the year.
Emma Ginn, co-ordinator of Medical Justice, said: "Despite compelling medical evidence, the UK Border Agency disbelieves Ms Tibikawa's story. UKBA do not dispute that Ms Tibikawa has scars caused by a hot flat iron, but conclude that she did not suffer any ill-treatment in Uganda. We condemn the fact that they intend to deport Ms Tibakawa to a country where being gay is illegal and puts your life at risk."
Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Gauri van Gulik said: "Our research has shown that many cases of women like Betty are not taken seriously by the UK Border Agency. Unfortunately women who suffer this kind of violence have serious difficulty claiming asylum."
A UK Border Agency spokesperson said: "The government has made it clear that it is committed to stopping the removal of asylum seekers who have genuinely had to leave particular countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identification.
"However, when someone is found not to have a genuine claim we expect them to leave voluntarily."
A 34-year-old gay man from Uganda was due to be removed from the UK on 17 May. UKBA did not confirm whether or not the removal went ahead.

The Poster

Here it is. I'm so proud of this. Thank you so much to Colin for finding it, to Mustafa, the photographer, for allowing us to use the image and to Rachel for putting the final design together!

Three hundred and seventy-seven ways of being; Queep Perspectives on Law Workshop (S.O.A.S.)

Making theatre is about asking questions. In my mind to leave stories unresolved, moments unexplained and avoid overt directorial commentary on themes and issues, creates a richer more challenging experience for the audience. This production is about awareness raising on the one hand, but it also seeks to ask what do these lives and stories tell us about how globalisation and sexual politics play out within the individual. The academics task on the other hand is more concerned with answers; to describe, to map out, to catagorise. At this series of seminars all of the speakers were painfully aware of the problematic and self defeating effect of trying to do this. A description soon becomes a label that needs to be subverted, a map to solid and reductive, cast you categorisation too wide and the needs of minority groups are ignored, too narrow and they are excluded. After the first set of talks one academic stood and empathised with the speakers;

“Things solidify as soon as they come out of our mouths, but we need to unsolidfy them at the same time.”

The morning I attended was fascinating for many reasons, not least the information and development of my understanding, but also as insight into the strange world of the academia.

Queer Muslim Identity

The first talk was given by an earnest young man, with a love of complex academic language, and was delivered at speed in a thick slavic accent. I can't say I grasped much of it however his main point was this, and it was picked up again by a later speaker; that queer Muslims find themselves caught between the hetronormativity of their religious background, which has little room sexual otherness, and the homonormativity of the West, which has little understanding for Muslim identity. This idea was developed in a later talk on Dutch "homoemancipation" and how it marginalises queer Muslim groups. Dutch policy focuses funding on mainstream L.G.B.T., and whilst queer Muslim 'liberation' is one of their priorities, ultimately this presents Muslims with having to choose between their religious and cultural identity and their sexual identity, which is this construct is purely in the West/Dutch's possession. In contrast the U.K. government has given balanced funds to the gay Muslim groups (such as the Safra Project), encouraging the development of a distinct queer Muslim identity.

This second talk teetered on the edge of occidentalism. At one point it was asserted that Dutch homosexuals were nostalgic for a time when there were no Muslims in the Netherlands, which seemed like a huge generalisation at best and actually rather homophobic at worst. Quite rightly the speaker was challenged on this during the Q and A, and whilst she asserted that she only meant to criticise the Dutch government, it demonstrated that on a day devoted to demanding better understanding of non-western cultures our own culture was often presented in overly simplified terms.

Homophobia in Uganda

Of all the talks given during the course of the morning this was the most interesting, and delivered in a clear and conversational style (as a director I can never get away from critiquing presentation technique).

The current debate on homosexuality in Uganda is based on two paradoxical stand points. One that homosexuality is an Un-African Western import, and the other that it is homophobia that is the U.S. funded colonial import. These claims are not only moral arguments, but also nationalist. Of course homosexual behaviour and homophobia have always been in all cultures, and do not have specific geographical loci, but specific historical factors give emphasis to one or the other over time.  To say that US evangelicals are importing homophobia is empty conspiracy theory, on a par with saying Hollywood movies are importing homosexuality.

To give a historical example in Iran Persian culture and Sufi poetry is full of homoeroticism. Thriugh out the 1800's the modernising Iranian elite came into greater contact with the conservative attitudes of  Europe and sought to explain this as metaphorical rather than literal. Equally men displaying affection between each other on the street was explained as homosocial, rather than having any sexual overtones. So rather than homophobia being implanted by colonialism, it was actually developed by the Iranian intelligentsia in defense of the idea of Iran as a savage and uncultivated land (leading to exactly the opposite situation in the 21st century).

In Uganda a similar thing is occurring. Uganda has a long complex history with homosexuality,  of which attitudes toward the1880's king of Buganda, Mwanga II,  serve as a focus. Mwanga offered a powerful resistance to colonial forces, in particular christian missionaries, and was known to engage in sex acts with men. He is eulogised as a hero of Ugandan national interest, whilst at the same time the Ugandan martyrs, 45 page boys Mwanga had executed for refused to renounce their new found christian faith, are held up as Christian heroes. He therefore holds a very ambiguous place in Ugandan history, and is discussed in both positive and negative terms depending on whether it is from a nationalist or religious perspective. The U.S. evangelical right, in the search for a more 'authentic' construct of christian morality (the speaker pointed out this is one of the few area where a proportion of the US population see a non-western culture as superior and guiding), are certainly bolstering this view of him as an anathema of human desire against devine order with funding. But the formulation of U.S. christian right meets easily influenced Africans is reductive. The current Ugandan crisis evolved over a long period of time, with a basis in a complex and paradoxical history.

Summery of other discussions.

The other talks did not have quite the same relevance to the project, but offered some interesting points none the less. One speaker used the example of Berlin skinheads as a microcosm of sexual and political complexity, as he discovered during his time living there that the rightwing/leftwing skinhead binary did not translate obviously into a straight/gay binary. The talk was relaxed and enjoyable to listen to, but didn't seem that insightful. An enormously glamorous speaker who spoke with a gloriously thick Italian accent ('etro-sek-syoo-al-it-ay) attempted to make the point that gay marriage was not a new concept, and that marriage's history is full of "queer" versions. However her point was based largely on the fact she had discovered over 40 african tribal cultures that allow for marriage between women, which seemed a little thin and based on miscellany rather than any profound analysis. I did feel for her though, as she was the subject of a brutal academic take down by a pompous audience member, who was against the idea that the state should have any power to recognise or validate any relationship. This fell into that other academic trap of ideological purity over the practical reality, in that the vast majority of the population still want to have their relationship validated and recognized by the state.

I stared out of the window at a hot guy smoking a cigarette on the wall outside during a talk on Mexico City's abortion laws I'm afraid, but was back into it for a talk entitled "Three hundered and seventy-seven ways of being- sexualness and the Indian self." The speaker, rather wonderfully, referring to "him" self in "his" biography as s/he or herim. Essentially the talk was a reiteration of the familiar idea that binary gender and labels of sexuality are inadequate, but placed them in the context of Indian cultural history. The idea that sexuality is a fixed part of our identity is, after all, a relatively recent one but has become the dominate model of sexual being. Indian culture has always been more about the flow of desire, and in light of this has recently scrapped colonial anti-sodomy laws and now officially recognises "other" as a third gender. This is about the right to express and enjoy sexualness rather than choose a sexuality in the western sense.

I hung around for the afternoon talks, but their focus looked to be increasingly on law rather than culture, so slip away into the life of central London's streets with much to think about. I found an internet cafe in Holborn and began writing up what I had heard. In the seedy gloom at the back of the shop two dark skinned men in filthy clothes slept contorted over blank computer screens. The owner eventually barreled down to eject them, and with their poor English they could offer little protest. Who they were, I can't make assumptions, but they were obviously destitute and in a strange land. The fine ideas expressed by the well dressed theoreticians in that sunny S.O.A.S. room were not just so much academic waffle, but arguments determined to further a more humanitarian understanding of ourselves, and not as remote from the scene in the internet shop as it might at first seem.

Please take notice!

I hope for the sake of everyone in Uganda, not just gays and Lesbians, this bill is stopped. There is 48 hours to sign this petition. 1,000,000 signatures is the desired amount and it's just over half way. The international community must show that oppression and death must never over rule love and freedom of expression.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/uganda_stop_homophobia_petition/?cl=1055976789&v=9043

The House of Rainbow.

The evening is warm and sunlit as I walk down a quiet suburban street in outer London. Houses foster little glass keeps over their front doors, filled with school shoes and dog leads, and the sounds of family life echo from somewhere distant. At the far end a battered, red-brick community hall that could be in a village in on Lewis rather than a pulsing metropolis plays host to the mysterious sounding "House of Rainbow Fellowship," an inclusive prayer group for gay, lesbian and straight people run by Nigerian Jide MacAulay.

I am the third to arrive. Jide is putting up laminated posters; "God Accepts You" "God Adores You." Instantly his warmth and humour feel welcoming. "You are early." He chuckles. I look at the clock and it is only a few minutes till half six, the appointed time. We chat in the summery coolness of the hall, his calm manner is pepper with burst of camp flamboyance. The fellowship began in 2006 in Lagos, at first very openly, before going underground and eventually leading to Jide needing to flee the country in self imposed exile. He has building up the group in London for over a year, and now has a group in Manchester too, though the fellowship is represent in a number of African countries too.

He goes to greet some arriving congregation and I take a seat (or a pew I suppose) towards the back of the rectangle of chairs he has laid out. More people are arriving, as a researcher I feel I should be jumping up and finding out all about them but my natural shyness prevents me. I am relieved when a Alice, a self assured lady from the west indies sits next to me and introduces herself. She greats the news of my project warmly and happily tells me of her own experience gaining status in the U.K.. I now feel bad that I am focusing purely on men for this project, as she seems so eager to share.

Jide takes her to one side to give her some duties for the service, and Robert, a quietly spoken American takes her place. I ask if "This is his first time?" Not quite sure how to present the fact that I am here to research rather than praise. He says yes, but probably his last. It transpires Robert is also an artist working on insectionality between immigration and sexuality. It seems Jide is the man to go to.

The service starts with Alice leading a prayer. She asks us to stand, and lets us know that when she feels the spirit she has to move around. I think of Philip Larkin in his poem "Church Going";

"Hatless, I take off/ My cycle clips in awkward reverence."

I feel I should join in, do something, though I hold no kind of faith at all. I stand but find I needn't worry. As I listened to Alice's words and the low hum of people (there must be about 15 in all, about half are white British) adding their own bursts of amens and Hallelujahs, I quickly feel deeply moved. "Bless the asylum seekers," she is saying, "And those who fear to be themselves." I cannot help but mumble "Amen" in agreement.

A  young man stands at the front and leads a series of chants, clapping his hands and stamping his feet. For a fleeting moment I see a group of bearded devout looking Muslim men walk past. So often the images of religion instill a kind of fear in me, but here this was different.

Jide leads his sermon. There is something so beautiful about it. Here in this quite hall, now around 20 people sit, felling free in a generous and pragmatic religious space. In front of me a beautiful lesbian couple sit, hand in hand, listening to his every word. Whilst I have no faith, his reiteration of the idea that we are all loved by god regardless to this small group of people, many of whom had overcome such suffering and who were such outsiders in relation to their nation of birth and faith, was profoundly moving.

A woman in a wheelchair reads the notices with a deft comic touch, and a collection is taken. I have been so anti-religion through out my life, but the help and guidance the House of Rainbow gives to people who do have faith in Lagos and Ghana and Lesotho, as well as London and Manchester, must be of such astonishing value to them, I emptied my pocket of all the pound coins I had (sadly only about a fiver).

We all held hands for a final prayer. The three other men I held hands with swayed and mumbled, and I felt a little fraudulent again. I gave in. Just in my head I said, with a wary tone, "Well God, if you are there, I think these people are doing something incredible so please protect and help them." I think it is the only time I have ever truely prayed and the only time I have meant what I asked for. We said the Lords Prayer together, and I actually rather enjoyed the familiar and poetic words coming from my lips, unsaid for many years.

Jide's blog; http://revrowlandjidemacaulay.blogspot.com/