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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE June 13, 2008

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www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

When the BBC says LGBT, they mean it

June releases cover every letter of our alphabet soup, even Q, A and I

by Anthony Glassman

BBC Home Video knows what you want, baby, and they're giving it to you all month long.

Oh, yeah.

No, the British Broadcasting Corp.'s consumer product arm is not getting into porn or "marital aids." They have noticed that June is Pride Month, and have a slate of DVD releases that should whip the LGBT community into a frenzy. And when the BBC says "LGBT," they mean every letter of it.

Taking those letters in that order, the first of these releases is Daphne, a biopic covering the years in writer Daphne Du Maurier's life between the time her husband returned from World War II until she wrote the short story "The Birds."

In that time, Daphne (Geraldine Somerville) met and fell in love with her American publisher's wife, Ellen Doubleday (Elizabeth McGovern).

Ellen is everything Daphne is not-self-assured, free-spirited, and very American.

Daphne, on the other hand, is very reserved, very concerned with propriety. So, although she feels like a "boy in a box," and the very sight of Ellen makes her heart feel "like an 18-year-old boy again," she is very circumspect in her dealings with her inamorata.

When she eventually does make her move, she is rebuffed, though in the kindest, gentlest

way. Doubleday is no stranger to the "third sex," and although she cannot love Daphne the way Du Maurier loves her, she keeps her close as a friend and offers her full validation.

Daphne later embarks on a relationship with a similarly vivacious, albeit British, actress, Gertrude Lawrence (Janet McTeer), who takes her fantasies and makes them flesh.

BBC Home Video then turns their eye on gay men with Tchaikovsky, a two-part docudrama from 2007 hosted by conductor Charles Hazelwood.

In between Hazelwood's narration and walking tour of locations from the composer's life, Ed Stoppard portrays Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

As a young child, Pyotr was sent to a

Curbside

MISSES IN THE DARKOR KIRE H

boarding school for potential civil servants in the czar's government, sent there by his beloved mother, who died of cholera when he was 16.

Years later, Tchaikovsky himself died, with his brother Modest attributing his end to the same disease that took his mother. However, tongues were wagging, and suicide is the whisper making the rounds.

Did the composer believe that death was the only way out for a gay man in an age when discovery meant exile to Siberia?

Perhaps the best of the slate of releases is The Buddha of Suburbia, the 1993 adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's marvelous novel. Kureishi deals extensively with sexual

OW I GOT STARTED IN MY CAREER WAS LIKE THIS. THE SCENE: SMALL COLLEGE PARTY COMPOSED OF THE GENVINELY COOL CROWD THE NEW WAVE, ART/FILM GEEK TYPES. AND ME.

AND

I

BE

MAYOR

OF

THE

SIMPLETON

THE GUY THROWING IT HAD HIS EYE ON ME AND I CERTAINLY LIKBD HIS TALENT FOR WILD POETRY AND ABSTRACT ART. PLUS HIS GLASSES AND HIS CUTE BIG NOSE.

GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT

BBC (3)

Elizabeth McGovern as

Ellen Doubleday and Geraldine Somerville as Daphne Du Maurier.

Ed Stoppard's Tchaikovsky with dancers.

and ethnic minorities in his work, as well as the class struggles in Britain, and Buddha is no exception.

Much like My Beautiful Laundrette, an earlier adaptation of his work, The Buddha of Suburbia deals with a young South Asian, Karim Amir (Naveen Andrews). He's a British-born young man, with a Pakistani father (Roshan Seth) and a white mother (Brenda Blethyn).

Despite being Muslim, his father is presenting himself as a Buddhist guru, while carrying on an affair with curvaceous dilettante Eva (Susan Fleetwood), whose son Charlie (Steven Mackintosh) is about Karim's age.

Karim is in love with Charlie, an attraction that leads him hither and yon either to please or to spite the white boy, depending on the state of their relationship at the time.

Along the course of the four-hour miniseries, Karim beds many a person, but seldom really gives of himself. He reaches pinnacles of success, never really knowing what it is he wants to do or wants to be.

Kureishi's writing is incredible, as is the cast assembled by director Roger Mitchell. The soundtrack, replete with period songs from the early 1970s through the end of the decade, adds a voluptuous quality that is

by Robert Kirby

SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT HE ANNOUNCED WE'D BE PLAYING LIGHTS OUT HIDE AND SEEK, AND HE'D BE "IT" FOR THE FIRST ROUND.

4....3....2....

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ow

HEE HEE HEE

SEEK!

SHHHHN

LOTS OF GIGGLING, LOTS OF "SHH SHH!" THEN I FELT A PAIR OF HANDS ON ME.

WHO'S THIS?

THE MINUTE HE KNEW IT WAS ME HE GRABBED ME AND LAID IT ON ME. I KNEW THEN I'D BE THE LAST ONE TO GO HOME.

THE FIRST REAL KISS YOU GET IS THE BEST KISS THE ONE THAT MOST HOLDS ALL THE EXCITEMENT OF THE NEW, ALL THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE.

www.curb-side.com

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