I’ve snobbishly held out against the sun-damaged charms of ITV’s package holiday sitcom Benidorm, set in the ‘all inclusive’ Hotel Solana, for several series. But the sixth one – which sadly this week pours the sand out of its shoes and packs its bags for another year – had me… Read More »“You’re As Camp as a Brighton Bus Queue!” – The Bon Mots of Benidorm
Sometimes I worry that I’m too difficult to please these days. At first glance I thought this latest example of ‘soldiers acting gay on video’, in this instance Swedish Marines in Afghanistan, was, despite the lashings of good humour on display, not to mention the military precision that has been put… Read More »Greased Up Swedish Marines
Mark Simpson interviews David Halperin about his controversial new book How To Be Gay (Originally appeared on Out.com 20/08/2012) I’ve always been a big fan of Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Doris Day. But it was a secret, shameful love – until, that is, David Halperin’s new book, How to Be Gay (Harvard… Read More »Camp For Beginners: David Halperin’s ‘How To Be Gay’
The campness of Susan Sontag (Independent on Sunday, 2002) The first sentence in Susan Sontag’s latest collection of essays is eight lines long, mentions Camus and Pasternak and ends with the word “impinging”. But would we have it any other way? Sontag dares to look serious in a way that… Read More »Does My Brain Look Big in This?
As camp comic Kenneth Williams might say: ‘ark at ‘er! An entertaining, often incisive, if rather, er, campy, Huffington Post article ‘The Diva’s Camp’ about Hillary’s diva power (and why this turns off ‘Obama-colytes’) compares Hillary Clinton to Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest: ‘Hillary Clinton is possessed by the spirit… Read More »Who’s the Diva? Hillary or Obama?