Polari, Just The Tonic I Needed

After the crappy start to the beginning of the week I was unsure if I was going to be able to make Polari or not, after a few calls with Polly, Dom and Mitch (who came to her first ever Polari last night) I decided that Polari would be just the tonic, decided my eye, I KNEW that it would be the perfect tonic. It was. It’s the busiest I have ever seen it, there was standing room only. The reason, apart from Polari being a fabulous night out, was that Will Self was giving a reading with Paul Burston hosting and Dom Agius DJing.

He was brilliant, very witty more than happy to talk about his time as an ‘omee-palone’ have I lost you, don’t know your Polari? Well maybe you should do some research, if you had been there last night you would have been given a glossary Paul had created and Polly and myself as our alter-ego’s ‘The Children of Polari’ handed them out to one and all. He was there to talk about and read from his reworking of The Picture of Dorian Gray as well as its author Oscar Wilde.

He was a superb reader and had the audience enthralled with accents, singing and some brilliant questions and answers. I am sure you can see the results from this picture below of the rapt (and one heavy eye lined menber of the) audience.

Mitch fitted right in (as you can see from the photo of Dom’s embrace below - thank you Dom for the photo's) and said she definitely wants to become a regular all the way from Hertfordshire. She had me in hysterics when she produced a Mills & Boon out of her bag. This one was special; it was a Modern Romance which Mitch announced ‘means he makes her a sandwich or some toast before a romp being a true modern man’. See the literature discussed at Polari is varied.

Yes it was just the escapism that I needed. Though there isn’t another one until September, what am I going to do with myself? Oh that’s right its City Lights and the Lavender Library as part of the London Literary Festival next Monday and Tuesday. Finally a picture of the children of Polari with their parents…