I've just popped out of hibernation to see what's going on. Nothing new at the moment so I shall go back to :zzz:

Lovely to hear him speaking.

 

http://www.heart.co.uk/bristolsomerset/on-...s-west-country/

 

So this break from music has been in the offing for a while.

I hope I've managed to bring this over properly. Just read it over on BD, with thanks to Soul Sister.

 

https://www.facebook.com/TrafTransformed?fref=ts

Part of 'Trafalgar transformed'

 

 

 

In addition, we are delighted to partner with Stonewall for the panel discussion 'Tackling Homophobia' on OCTOBER 9TH, 6pm – 6.45pm. Tickets are free with a ticket to that evenings performance #ThePride. Panel guests will include Stonewall supporter Will Young. £10 from every ticket bought for that evenings performance of The Pride will be donated to Stonewall

Edited September 21, 201311 yr by suggy

Thanks girls. Noticed the new banner headline TT. I was going to ask if we should have a new one. :D

Thanks girls. Noticed the new banner headline TT. I was going to ask if we should have a new one. :D

 

Thanks to suggy. I couldn't remember how to change it. :lol:

Thanks to suggy. I couldn't remember how to change it. :lol:

 

:rolleyes: :lol:

Thanks TT, lovely to hear Will speaking and Chrysalis, I've edited your link as it wasn't working before. :D

Well chuffed. In a bar in Feurventura and they are playing Echoes in it's entirety. :cheer: :w00t:

Well chuffed. In a bar in Feurventura and they are playing Echoes in it's entirety. :cheer: :w00t:

 

 

Brilliant to hear such a great album when you're not expecting it! :cheer:

Will on a rant - and rightly so ...

 

Will Young ‏@will_young31 17h

 

Tescos selling a 'gay best friend' blow up doll. They have sensored the word gay for g#y. Are you F###ing kidding me????

 

Read the blurb it is the most patronising thing ever. A gay best friend being likened to a iPhone

 

“We’ve had the manbag, we’ve had leg warmers and iPhone fever, now it’s time for the new craze." Is what they say

 

Will Young ‏@will_young31 17h

 

I am speechless pic.twitter.com/LmjXFvTacr

 

http://t.co/LmjXFvTacr

 

Tescos going all guns. I've come late to the party.great stigmatisation with the costume for 'phsyco ward'

 

Love the fact the spokesperson says it was response 'to customer feedback'

 

Dear Tescos....'I would love to have a costume for Halloween taking off people with mental illness. My children especially would love it...

 

Don't worry about the 30,000 deaths every year in UK from preventable mental illness. This will really be a great product for your customers

 

Outrageous. Have they like ASDA made a donation to a charity for this?

 

Oops. I ranted and actually tescos pulling the costume from shelves was a response to customer feedback! Sorry tescos

Pursuant to the Stonewall Pride discussion on the 9th -

 

Stonewall Gala Evening on October 9th

Panel Discussion Tackling Homophobia 6.00pm-6.45pm

Stonewall – a leading voice in the campaign for justice for the bisexual, gay and lesbian community – host a pre-show

discussion on the derogatory use of language, and the challenges we all face to ensure that equality prevails.

Panel guests will include Stonewall supporter Will Young.

Will writes in The Independent on Sunday:

 

Will Young Sunday 13 October 2013

 

Note to society: We're not G*Y – we're GAY!

 

Fear once made it hard for the singer even to say the word. Things are different now, but 'gay' is still a savage insult in schools. Time for Michael Gove to get involved, surely

 

Recently, if you were trawling through the Tesco's website looking for a gift you would have come across the perfect present. A "gay best friend". The sales pitch for the product described how "you've had the man bag and the iPhone … now get your very own gay best friend". I'm not sure if I have the time or the inclination to go into the concept of placing a gay man in the same category as a bag or mobile phone, or the fact that this blow-up gay man can go "shoe shopping" with you. The message is, it is OK. Gay men can be useful. Use them.

 

 

 

More disturbing was that the word was modified to G*Y. Now this got my attention. It is clear that gay is still seen as a naughty, disgusting and inappropriate word. Couldn't this word be spelt out properly, to mean "homosexual"? Apparently not, as that would put it on a par with "sex", "penis", "sauna" and, gosh, even "anal". Here was a paradox. A product that I presume had some vague intent of promoting equality and understanding was being sold with the actual word being obscured, as if it was something that shouldn't be uttered out loud or displayed in print.

 

When I was coming out, to even utter the word "gay" took me a long time. Such was the shame and the fear in equal measures. Even now to proudly proclaim the word in some places would encourage looks and whisperings. For me, at 34 years of age, this is of little concern. My point, however, is obvious yet necessary.

 

For someone to proclaim they are gay is a statement, a declaration that they are inclined to sleep with a member of the same sex. With this has always come stigmatisation. A sense of "design fault". There has been a huge development in the 50 years since the word gay acquired its primarily homosexual meaning. In the '60s it became legal to be actively/openly homosexual, yet being gay was still frowned upon and not really spoken about. In the '80s the Aids epidemic struck, whilst at the same time gay men became more politicised and energised about their rights. Suddenly, being gay was seen by homophobes as aggressively activist and promiscuous and diseased. Now in 2013 gay means proud, unashamed, open, human. Within 50 years the connotations of the word have evolved to slowly rest in their rightful place. There is a disjoint, however, between the adult world and that of the world our children are occupying. I can walk around London or into my local pub in Cornwall and have no concern about being openly gay. This is not the case for young people. Within UK schools and on the streets and even in homes, "gay" is used as one of the meanest and most savage and effective forms of insult. With it still comes the sense of wrongness, moral disgust and repugnance. Immediately the child is pushed to the perimeter, a social outcast.

 

From a very early age children are allowed to use gay as a way of describing something inherently wrong, as in "err, that is so gay", or "oh stop being so gay", or "God, that film was so gay".

 

A few months ago I attended a teachers/education conference at the Barbican organised by Stonewall. Through the various seminars I attended I picked up one recurring theme: teachers and heads of schools were more than often not backed up by local authorities in their use of homophobic language. If it was anti-religious or race, the matter was rightly dealt with, and quickly. Homophobia? ... not seen as such a big deal. But… IT IS A BIG DEAL. An astonishing 23 per cent of young gay people attempt suicide (Crisis figures).

 

This is not a small statistic, this is an epidemic, but still we find teachers not wanting to tackle homophobia. Whether they lack the power, the empathy or they have an overriding fear of parental reaction, it isn't good enough.

 

Young boys and girls are growing up with the assumption of being gay as defective and unworthy of friendship, love or generosity. When the tackling of language has proved so powerful in the case of racial equality, how can we sit back and allow this to carry on in modern society? The fact is, in Britain, being of gay sexual orientation is still seen as a choice, and it is still "a bit wrong".

 

One still reads in newspapers, "Jo Blogs ADMITS to being gay". Being gay is still lightly poked at even on shows such as Strictly Come Dancing. The notion being... oh, this is a bit uncomfortable, someone has alluded to something homosexual so let's make up some jovial banter to cover it up and make it acceptable. There are puns used on that show that were floating around when Frankie Howerd was on television. Race, religion, gender, disability are not grounds for mockery, so why is being gay? We are ridiculously behind the times in this country. Dare I say it, we're … seriously uncool!

 

The good news is these concerns are a mere hangover in the context of a gay rights movement that is really astonishing and exciting to be part of. To be gay now is to be open and proud and most importantly to be oneself. Britain is the most fantastic country to live in. We have such a rich, limitlessly inspiring diversity of life.

 

I get saddened, though, when I see that we as a country are failing our children within education. We are failing them if teachers don't immediately clamp down on homophobia and the negative hijacking of language. We are failing our children if we don't allow them to grow up in a nurturing educational environment of acceptance and love for everyone. We are limiting our children if government cannot see it needs to ensure stricter guidelines and the required legal muscle to make this happen.

 

Education Secretary Michael Gove attended the conference I mentioned above. I put it to him that the derogatory use of the word gay should be addressed. I am pleased to say his reaction was attentive and encouraging. Let's see words turn into actions, Michael.

 

And it can be done. Language is the key. Reclaim the language and change will be imminent. It has been proven time and time again.

 

School heads can be given the power, via local government, to set out national guidelines for schools. What's difficult about that?

 

The irony of course is I write this for the paper that prints the very worthy "Pink List" this week. The debate on why the list must be called "PINK" I leave for next year…

 

Will Young is a singer-songwriter and actor. He won the inaugural 2002 series of 'Pop Idol'

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commen...ay-8876426.html

 

And a couple of Tweets from Will re the headline banner of his article:

 

Will Young ‏@will_young31 3h

 

Really pleased with my piece in paper @Independent . The title FYI has been changed and sounds a little too activist for my liking and..

.... And misleading as to what place I am coming from. I'm not 'speaking for the gays' but rather passing a comment on bullying....

bullying and homophobic language. I am still extremely grateful to @Independent just want to clear up my position!!

 

He also spoke on Radio 4 yesterday and Sky News with Dermot Murnaghan this morning.

Edited October 13, 201311 yr by munchkin

Interview ahead of Peterborough.

 

The Moment talks to… Will Young

 

 

The sparkling new season at the Broadway Theatre is about to launch, and the Olivier-nominated production of Cabaret is just one of the treats on offer. The Moment magazine spoke to its star Will Young (starring as Emcee) about his multi-faceted career as a writer, singer, political activist and film producer.

Since your career launched after Pop Idol (Will won the inaugural show back in 2002) you’ve broadened your scope to include acting, writing, documentary-making and producing a film (Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus) as well as singing and song-writing. Did you always have ambitions beyond a pop career, or has it been more of a happy accident?

I always wanted to sing and write songs: when I entered Pop Idol, it was about something I had wanted from about the age of four; singing was my first thing. Then I got to my second album and I found I was really enjoying the acting in videos – and when I was younger I had planned to go to drama school – and I fancied doing a play, and then a play came along. Things just sort of happen! I think the key is to be open to opportunities: now I am a singer and an actor, and I am pleased that that has bedded in, so now I’m thinking about the next thing. You only have one life, I might as well do as much as I can – within reason, you know, I don’t want to become a workaholic!

Emcee (the ambiguous, outrageous and sinister commentator on the events of the play) is a fantastic role to get your teeth into. Did you pursue it or were you approached?

I always wanted to play the part, in fact I remember years ago my dad saying: ‘that would be the perfect part for you.’ Then Bill Kenwright, the producer, approached me and I knew that Rufus Norris would be directing it, and I thought I just had to go for it.

You’re educated in politics (Will’s degree is in Politics) and are very politically active. Is your interpretation of Emcee informed by this, or does he come from a darker, more visceral place?

I don’t know where he comes from! I do think that being politicised to an extent and feeling particularly strongly about some of the themes in the play, such as money, dark power, attacks on minorities such as gay men and women, Jewish people, black people, it does tie into my understanding of what my role is. I never locked him down, but he does come out of my love of the weird, of clowns, and of course of cabaret. He just happened, and I think if I were to try and focus on it too much it might limit my performance. He is really unpleasant! He’s a strange mix of naïve, seemingly innocent and baby-like, but he can go from that to ‘I’m going to kill you because you haven’t given me what I want.’ He’s like the musical itself, there are so many levels to it. The character has a deep understanding of cabaret and what it is, and he has a deep understanding if what he wants to do with the musical numbers he performs. Within the numbers he’s always playing with a role but he’s also playing with the audience, one moment he’s all, ‘come in, have fun, relax,’ then he hits them with a line that gets a laugh but maybe on reflection it’s not so funny. But he does add light relief and at every stage he knows what is happening – he is literally the Master of Ceremonies and he is the master of the cabaret club.

Is this part of the appeal, the danger, the dark side?

I’m not so sure. The thing is that audiences always want to laugh, they want light relief – they don’t want, immediately, to be made uncomfortable, so I think that, to begin with, Emcee offers a comfortable escape from a story that is building and building. I’m not sure how comfortable audiences are with his psychopathic side. The reason I mention this is because I’ve seen it in audiences’ reactions – they often still want to laugh at things, even when I’m in a Nazi romper suit! It’s why I think the ending is so powerful, the ending smacks the audience in the face and says: ‘this is what’s been happening all along.’

How did it feel to get the Olivier nomination?

The whole thing was a brilliant run really, from finding the character, doing the show, getting the feeling that I was doing a good job and feeling very fulfilled by that. I wasn’t really thinking about the Oliviers, and then the nomination came in and I thought: ‘that’s just brilliant!’ I was really thrilled, really, really thrilled.

So, what next? You’ve done so much already!

I do writing, I’ve had a few pieces in the papers, and I’d like to do more commentary stuff, then I’d like to do some comedy or drama writing, I’ll see what happens. I might be doing another documentary, I’m not sure. And I’ve just signed to Island Records, so my next album will happen. I think the key is to not be fearful, I mean… I’m not scared of failure: if things were to go wrong I’d think, ‘Oh, I’ll be alright!’. It’s pretty selfish, really, I just do things I want to do! I’m not always going to get things right – I did a play, and it didn’t get brilliant reviews but I did as well as I could at the time. As long as you don’t enter into that mad world where you’re always relying on what other people think, then it’s fine!

Finally, why is Cabaret such a compelling show, and why should people see it?

Cabaret tells a great story, and I think that whoever’s in it, whoever’s directing it, people will want to see it. It’s a story about power, power without humanity, and it’s still happening now and people are turning a blind eye to it – that’s the same as what happened with the Nazi party. There’s an interesting quote: ‘what we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.’ My history teacher told me that years ago and I’ve always remembered it, but I think you can learn, and should learn, as things come up again and again. I think when you have a song called ‘Money’, which is about greed and selfishness, it says it all, really…

The Broadway autumn and winter season runs from Sunday, 20 October 2013 – Saturday, 11 January 2014. Cabaret runs from Monday, 2 December – Saturday, 7 December.

www.vivacity-peterborough.comwww.kenwright.com

 

http://www.themomentmagazine.com/entertain...lks-will-young/

 

I love Will's philosophy on just going for things. Really lives up to his family motto. Wonder what the documentary is about?

Edited October 15, 201311 yr by truly talented

Thanks TT and munchkin for the latest news snippets etc from Will, trying to catch up on things again after my house move, back onto the same street that I left just 9 months ago, :rolleyes: so happy to back here again and and anyway, my curtains look so much better in a bay window. :lol:

Hi Suggy lovely to see you posting :D

 

Hopefully it's not too long until we can all meet up again ....have not seen you in ages .

Hi Suggy lovely to see you posting :D

 

Hopefully it's not too long until we can all meet up again ....have not seen you in ages .

 

Fingers crossed. It's been too long.

Why is Will on radio 4 in a play about a woman giving birth to rabbits? he's called Joshua in it. I thought I was hearing things but of course nobody has a voice as recognisable as Will's. :D

Why is Will on radio 4 in a play about a woman giving birth to rabbits? he's called Joshua in it. I thought I was hearing things but of course nobody has a voice as recognisable as Will's. :D

 

Ermm, it's a repeat suggy, first aired April 2011! :D

Ermm, it's a repeat suggy, first aired April 2011! :D

 

I'm losing it, I vaguely remembered it as it was carrying on. :lol:

Will was on 50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments this afternoon, I know its a repeat but nice to see it again. :cheer:

Not abroad then.

 

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb152/gillwill_photos/Bc-dZytIUAAY7U8.jpg

 

Kat ‏@Carlie_ki

Look who we bumped into this time! @moon_cake1 is indeed a magnet for this sort of thing! #willyoung pic.twitter.com/Jf4cZ1cJIZ

gurd ‏@gurd_loyal

Just met @will_young31 in a cafe. He's hotter in real life. And has a nice red hat. And is really smiley. And speaks like the queen.

 

lovely to see him back in relaxing mode. :wub: