Beautiful Thing – Leeds Playhouse
Let me take you back to a time when the British government introduced legislation banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools trying to silence educators and the only gay role models on the TV were tired old parodies.
It must seem scarcely believable to Gen Z, but for those of us who lived through those dark days it’s a delight that Beautiful Thing has been revived on its 30th anniversary as its core message that love is love was the perfect antidote to the rampant homophobia given credibility by Mrs T. Jonathan Harvey’s warm and funny play was part of an artistic response at the time to bigotry, including the much rawer My Beautiful Laundrette.
Harvey went on to write hundreds of episodes of Corrie, so there is a touch of soap opera as sensitive teenager Jamie ...