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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Led By Donkeys in conversation with Zoe Williams
Led By Donkeys was founded in early 2019 when four friends, Ben Stewart, James Sadri, Oliver Knowles and Will Rose – motivated by the chaos Britain had been pitched into – started going out at night to paste guerrilla billboards of the leading Brexiters' historic tweets. Soon after, the group was reaching millions of people with every intervention and have continued their work mixing art and activism to create some of the most memorable images of our political age. Projecting public sentiment on to the palace of Westminster, lowering a remote-controlled banner featuring a lettuce and the words 'I crashed the economy.' behind Liz Truss, and laying out 11,000 children's outfits along Bournemouth beach to represent the children killed in Gaza: these are just three of the group's numerous artistic acts of resistance against the ineptitudes and corruption committed by those in power. What keeps the group going? And has their campaigning changed anything. Join them on Tuesday 30 September with Guardian columnist Zoe Willliams, for what promises to be an unforgettable evening. They'll be live in London and online, as they reveal the true stories behind the activism that has shaken and stirred UK politics since 2019. And as we face a new political landscape, this is also your opportunity to ask them your own questions on what we can expect next from them. You can join this event in-person at Soho Theatre Walthamstow, London, E17 4QH, or via the livestream. Tickets start from £39 to attend the event in person, or £15 to watch the livestream. All event ticket sales go towards supporting the Guardian's open, crucial journalism. Book tickets – in person or livestream Date: Tuesday 30 September 2025Time: 7.30pm-9.30pm (BST), this includes a 30 minute interval Or see this time zone converter to check your local live streaming Soho Theatre Walthamstow, London, E17 4QH, or join via the livestreamAccessibility: Soho Theatre Walthamstow is wheelchair accessible. For detailed access information for the venue, please see their website here. If you have any access requirements you are eligible for 1 x free companion ticket, however access tickets must be booked via the venue directly here. If you miss this live event, a recording will be sent to you. It will be available for two weeks so you can catch-up or revisit the event in your own time. What are the terms and conditions? By proceeding, you agree to the Guardian Live events Terms and Conditions. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our Privacy Policy. How do I access a livestream event? This event will be hosted on a third-party live streaming platform Vimeo, please refer to their privacy policy and terms and conditions before purchasing a ticket to the event. After registering, please refer to your confirmation email for access to the event. Will there be closed captions available? Yes closed captions will be available for this event. Guardian Live brings you closer to the big stories, award-winning journalists, and leading thinkers in livestreamed and interactive events that you can access from wherever you are in the world. To stay informed, sign up to our newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram.
Time Out
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs
This review is from Soho Theatre in 2022; it transfers to Kiln Theatre with a partially changed cast that includes Liz Carr and Leah Harvey. The rainbow flag offers an idealised portrait of the LGBTQ-plus community: people of different stripes co-existing in harmony, each taking up an equal amount of space. But the reality is messier, scribbled over with conflicts and inequalities. Iman Qureshi's warm, complex play 'The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs' explores just how difficult it is to create a queer space, while showing how beautiful it can be when the stars align. Things start out in pretty formulaic style. Each week, a disparate gaggle of lesbians meet up in a leaky-roofed hall to sing in a choir, with the lofty goal of performing on the main stage at Pride. There's wildly confident womaniser Ellie (Fanta Barrie), hyper-woke academic Ana (Claudia Jolly), and her reluctantly-tagging-along butch engineer girlfriend Lori (Kibong Tanji) who turns out to have an amazing singing voice, all arranged into an approximation of harmony by self-styled OWL (older wiser lesbian) Connie (Shuna Snow). It could all be the beginnings of a dykier, hopefully less doomed remake of 'Glee'. But Qureshi's play is way smarter than that. She toys enjoyably with lesbian cliches (sensible footwear, veganism, buzzcuts) only to reach beyond them to tell less familiar stories. Like that of Dina (an engagingly puppyish Lara Sawalha), a Muslim woman who throws herself into choir as an escape from her forbidding husband. Or that of the faltering romance between trans woman Brig (Mariah Louca), and Fi (Kiruna Stamell), who campaigns fruitlessly for a ramp so she can access the choir's hall independently, but alienates Brig when her feelings of being left behind spill out in an agonised tirade against twenty-first-century inclusivity. Qureshi doesn't shy away from tackling transphobia, and the way it's driven a wedge between different generations of lesbians. But she also highlights the relative privilege that British queer people live in, using Dina's story to highlight the injustice of the immigration system and the suffering of closeted people in countries where homosexuality is illegal. 'The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs' tackles massive themes, in ways that threaten to unbalance what's fundamentally a feel-good comedy with added a capella. There's not much lesbian theatre around, so it sometimes feels like it's struggling under the weight of trying to encompass every lesbian story in one short show. But it all just about works, thanks to a septet of winning performances and Hannah Hauer-King's taut direction. It's a warm cosy hug of a show, full of life, wit, and pathos that lingers long after its last notes fade.
New Statesman
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Why I'm falling for East 17
Illustration by Charlotte Trounce We seem to have chosen just the right moment to move to Walthamstow. The week before we got the keys to our new flat at the end of August last year, the area's only cinema – closed since the previous summer – reopened under new ownership. Next, in March, the Times named E17 the best place to live in London. Getting 'Stay Another Day' stuck in my head every time I write my postcode seems a fair price to pay for such heights. Then, last Friday, the new outpost of Soho Theatre, the confusingly named Soho Theatre Walthamstow, opened. It's not often that a PR invite lands in my inbox that I actually want to say yes to, but a long-anticipated opening night a ten-minute walk from my flat? It was an easy yes. The site has been a cultural landmark since 1887, when a Victorian music hall opened there. The building that now exists opened in 1929 as a cinema, and was often frequented by Alfred Hitchcock, who was born in the borough (though too late, sadly, for William Morris, our other famous alumnus). Later, it operated as a music venue, hosting the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Buddy Holly. In 2003 the building was bought by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, but they were unable to get planning permission, and it fell into disrepair. Various groups campaigned for it to be restored and reopened as an arts venue, and in 2018 the council acquired it and announced that Soho Theatre would operate it. We missed all these years of hard work by local activists, swanning in at the last-minute for the rewarding part. But still, seeing the buzz on the street on opening night, I felt pride for my little corner of London. For our first six months of living in the area, the theatre was boarded up and, save for the odd glimpse through a door left open by a workman, we had no idea what lay behind. As it turns out, what lay behind was an opulent baroque theatre, which, at 1,000 seats, proffers a new sort of comedy venue for the capital: far bigger than Soho Theatre's Dean Street home, but far smaller the Hammersmith Apollo. The opening-night show, Weer by the LA comedian Natalie Palamides, is a piss-take of Nineties comedies, in which Palamides plays both on-off lovers over the course of their three-year relationship. When her right-hand side faces the audience she is Mark, with a plaid shirt and a brooooooo-ish drawl; her left is Christina, in alarmingly low-rise jeans and a G-string pulled up to her waist. It's an extraordinary feat of physical comedy; Palamides, at various points, runs into herself, snogs herself, tries to revive herself after a car crash. It's clownish, explicit, and fearless. There are a lot of in-jokes – knowing nods to the duality of the performance; references to Notting Hill and The Notebook – and some truly hilarious audience participation (though perhaps I'd feel differently had I been called upon to pretend to dance in a club on stage). Those roped in are generally good sports, though Palamides has to petition three audience members before one will deliver the traditional 'discovering he's cheating' voicemail. I am all ready to go, should the mic be pointed in my direction: 'Hey baby, I had so much fun last night. You left your pants behind…' There's also a lot of nakedness; I keep waiting to get used to the fact that Palamides has her boobs out for a considerable chunk of the show, but the moment never comes. After a high-energy 80 or so minutes, Palamides gives an emotional thank you and the whole room stands to applaud, and I find myself moved that this space could mean so much to so many, as I often am by collective demonstrations of emotion. I never really wanted to move to Walthamstow – leaving Islington was a financial necessity more than anything. But I'm getting to know it, growing to love it, more each day. Here's hoping those drawn out to the end of the Victoria Line by our very own Soho Theatre don't feel the same, because house prices are bad enough as it is. [See also: The solitary life of bees] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
Telegraph
01-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
When society erases the male voice, a toxic backlash is the inevitable result
If anything signals the dawn of a dystopian age, it's surely the launch this week of Britain's first male-only publisher. Conduit Books is planning to tackle the marginalisation of male writers in the female-dominated industry. Predictably, its launch has been met with liberal derision. But in truth it is a serious warning sign that something has gone deeply wrong. While the movement for female equality has made great strides since the Suffragettes, we should admit it is now going too far – and is feeding male resentment. After a series of momentous victories – from securing the vote to abortion rights and the outlaw of marital rape – the feminist movement is now overcorrecting. And it is becoming grotesquely hypocritical in the process. While the worlds of finance, tech and science are lambasted for their failure to recruit more women, it is customary to openly fete the purging of men in the creative arts. In publishing insiders admit 'the word is out that there are agents who just don't bother taking on men'. The theatre director Kate Gilchrist's proposal for a year-long ban on staging the works of white male writers at the Soho Theatre captures the zeitgeist. Nobody complains on hearing women are dominating a particular industry. Nobody questions when high-flying female executives promote other women, while male counterparts are heavily scrutinised by their HR overseers if there is the faintest whiff of unconscious bias. Too often women are speedily elevated at the expense of equally competent male colleagues. But what we might term 'toxic femininity' is proving bad for business. Gripped by groupthink, the top publishing houses have lost their edge. It is the smaller independents which are snapping up the talented male writers who go on to win prizes like the Booker and the Pulitzer. Fixated with identity politics, the world of literature has almost completely ceased to produce works that have mass appeal. While the British 'state of the nation' novel has died a death, bookstores are cluttered with woke pulp that is lucky to sell a few hundred copies. Publishing is not the only female-dominated industry that is failing. As male teachers flee the sector, boys are underperforming. Social care is in crisis, with dire shortage of male staff meaning elderly men suffer the indignity of being washed and dressed by caregivers of the opposite sex. The HR industry has an excessive focus on fighting culture wars through staff networks rather than tackling the flatlining of worker productivity. As one care industry expert confessed to me: 'If you google social care then you basically get women in lilac uniforms delivering cups of tea to old men.' Then there's the female-dominated marketing industry, which is failing to target men in ways that resonate with their experience. As Fernando Desouches, the managing director of ad agency BBD Perfect Storm told me: 'We have made huge progress with how we advertise to women. But our approach to men is still quite narrow and materialistic. The way we build male aspiration is adding pressure to men in the same way female beauty was (and maybe still is) hurting women's confidence. The data shows that the way we are portraying men doesn't resonate with them. They are an underexploited growth opportunity for brands.' Toxic femininity is not only bad for industry but society. 19th-century feminist pushed for a more equal world, in which people are judged by their character, not biology. But the movement has gone far beyond its original purpose, and now actively pits the sexes against each other. Too many women believe they must engage in zero-sum wars for resources, status and respect. But a backlash against the war on men is now underway. Polling shows that more than half of men think the promotion of women's equality has 'gone too far'. Women might be tempted to retort that these men are surely hallucinating, for it is still a man's world. Thanks to the motherhood penalty men still earn more than women. They still dominate board rooms. Yet the men who increasingly feel they're living in a woman's world do have a point. Women aged 22-39 are paid more than men, and girls outperform them in school on almost every metric. Female-only fiefdoms are allowing women to subtly build the world in their own image. The pro-female slant to publishing means that the most promoted, and thus powerful, writers are increasingly likely to be women. With women dominating HR, all workplaces are becoming increasingly feminised. The push towards hybrid working, for instance, seems to be shaped by female preferences, with some research suggesting that men fear its impact on their promotion prospects. According to the ONS, men who work part-time are paid less per hour than women. Resentment is building up most notably among Gen Z males. It is hardly surprising that young men are getting sucked into incel societies when you consider how mainstream society mocks and marginalises them. It is little wonder that teenage boys become enraptured with online misogynists inspired by Andrew Tate, given the dearth of male role models and authors writing intelligently about the trials of coming of age, J D Salinger style. It is no great shock that adolescent men are embracing these nastily sexist archetypes, when the male caricatures that they are bombarded with by advertisers are nastily misandrist – by the own admission of industry insiders, oscillating between 'the comedy buffoon who doesn't know how to turn on the washing machine or the Stoic provider'. And it is little wonder that men from working class backgrounds feel like they have no prospects, when the biggest sources of mass employment in the post-industrial era, such as social care, are again hyper feminised. There are many who are keen to interpret the growing tensions between the sexes as a problem of 'toxic masculinity'. When the crisis is framed in this way, the temptation is to simply double down on the feminist cause while demanding ever more robust safeguards to protect women from male anger. Labour's latest calls for a teacher in every school to 'tackle violence against girls' is typical of this attitude. Perhaps worst of all, the relentless negativity towards men is distracting us from the real issues still facing women in Britain today: the rise in domestic violence, the reported increase in FGM. By broadening the 'problem' to encompass all men, we are not confronting the truly menacing few. Feminism has overreached. The consequences are proving dangerous and divisive. We ignore this at our peril.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
When society erases the male voice, a toxic backlash is the inevitable result
If anything signals the dawn of a dystopian age, it's surely the launch this week of Britain's first male-only publisher. Conduit Books is planning to tackle the marginalisation of male writers in the female-dominated industry. Predictably, its launch has been met with liberal derision. But in truth it is a serious warning sign that something has gone deeply wrong. While the movement for female equality has made great strides since the Suffragettes, we should admit it is now going too far – and is feeding male resentment. After a series of momentous victories – from securing the vote to abortion rights and the outlaw of marital rape – the feminist movement is now overcorrecting. And it is becoming grotesquely hypocritical in the process. While the worlds of finance, tech and science are lambasted for their failure to recruit more women, it is customary to openly fete the purging of men in the creative arts. In publishing insiders admit 'the word is out that there are agents who just don't bother taking on men'. The theatre director Kate Gilchrist's proposal for a year-long ban on staging the works of white male writers at the Soho Theatre captures the zeitgeist. Nobody complains on hearing women are dominating a particular industry. Nobody questions when high-flying female executives promote other women, while male counterparts are heavily scrutinised by their HR overseers if there is the faintest whiff of unconscious bias. Too often women are speedily elevated at the expense of equally competent male colleagues. But what we might term 'toxic femininity' is proving bad for business. Gripped by groupthink, the top publishing houses have lost their edge. It is the smaller independents which are snapping up the talented male writers who go on to win prizes like the Booker and the Pulitzer. Fixated with identity politics, the world of literature has almost completely ceased to produce works that have mass appeal. While the British 'state of the nation' novel has died a death, bookstores are cluttered with woke pulp that is lucky to sell a few hundred copies. Publishing is not the only female-dominated industry that is failing. As male teachers flee the sector, boys are underperforming. Social care is in crisis, with dire shortage of male staff meaning elderly men suffer the indignity of being washed and dressed by caregivers of the opposite sex. The HR industry has an excessive focus on fighting culture wars through staff networks rather than tackling the flatlining of worker productivity. As one care industry expert confessed to me: 'If you google social care then you basically get women in lilac uniforms delivering cups of tea to old men.' Then there's the female-dominated marketing industry, which is failing to target men in ways that resonate with their experience. As Fernando Desouches, the managing director of ad agency BBD Perfect Storm told me: 'We have made huge progress with how we advertise to women. But our approach to men is still quite narrow and materialistic. The way we build male aspiration is adding pressure to men in the same way female beauty was (and maybe still is) hurting women's confidence. The data shows that the way we are portraying men doesn't resonate with them. They are an underexploited growth opportunity for brands.' Toxic femininity is not only bad for industry but society. 19th-century feminist pushed for a more equal world, in which people are judged by their character, not biology. But the movement has gone far beyond its original purpose, and now actively pits the sexes against each other. Too many women believe they must engage in zero-sum wars for resources, status and respect. But a backlash against the war on men is now underway. Polling shows that more than half of men think the promotion of women's equality has 'gone too far'. Women might be tempted to retort that these men are surely hallucinating, for it is still a man's world. Thanks to the motherhood penalty men still earn more than women. They still dominate board rooms. Yet the men who increasingly feel they're living in a woman's world do have a point. Women aged 22-39 are paid more than men, and girls outperform them in school on almost every metric. Female-only fiefdoms are allowing women to subtly build the world in their own image. The pro-female slant to publishing means that the most promoted, and thus powerful, writers are increasingly likely to be women. With women dominating HR, all workplaces are becoming increasingly feminised. The push towards hybrid working, for instance, seems to be shaped by female preferences, with some research suggesting that men fear its impact on their promotion prospects. According to the ONS, men who work part-time are paid less per hour than women. Resentment is building up most notably among Gen Z males. It is hardly surprising that young men are getting sucked into incel societies when you consider how mainstream society mocks and marginalises them. It is little wonder that teenage boys become enraptured with online misogynists inspired by Andrew Tate, given the dearth of male role models and authors writing intelligently about the trials of coming of age, J D Salinger style. It is no great shock that adolescent men are embracing these nastily sexist archetypes, when the male caricatures that they are bombarded with by advertisers are nastily misandrist – by the own admission of industry insiders, oscillating between 'the comedy buffoon who doesn't know how to turn on the washing machine or the Stoic provider'. And it is little wonder that men from working class backgrounds feel like they have no prospects, when the biggest sources of mass employment in the post-industrial era, such as social care, are again hyper feminised. There are many who are keen to interpret the growing tensions between the sexes as a problem of 'toxic masculinity'. When the crisis is framed in this way, the temptation is to simply double down on the feminist cause while demanding ever more robust safeguards to protect women from male anger. Labour's latest calls for a teacher in every school to 'tackle violence against girls' is typical of this attitude. Perhaps worst of all, the relentless negativity towards men is distracting us from the real issues still facing women in Britain today: the rise in domestic violence, the reported increase in FGM. By broadening the 'problem' to encompass all men, we are not confronting the truly menacing few. Feminism has overreached. The consequences are proving dangerous and divisive. We ignore this at our peril. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
