Author: Jack Scott

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as an indie publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

The Duke

In 1961 a portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Francisco Goya was lifted from the National Gallery in London. Only 19 days earlier it had been ‘bought for the nation’ for £140,000, a huge sum to shell out back in the day. But it wasn’t an ill-gotten gain to be fenced to a dodgy dealer. No, it was a modern take on robbing the rich to feed the poor, or rather to pay for their TV licenses. The thief sent a series of ransom notes to the authorities guaranteeing to return the Duke unharmed if elderly people were exempted. It’s a campaign that still rumbles on to this day. But who was the anti-hero behind the audacious heist? None other than Kempton Bunton, a middle-aged cabbie from Newcastle with a messianic sense of social justice.

And now there’s the COVID-delayed film, Duke, based on this extraordinary story and starring Jim Broadbent as Kempton and Helen Mirren as his long-suffering wife, Dorothy. Both deliver top-notch performances in a very British, very funny and heart-warming Robin Hood tale for the modern age. But does Kempton meet his Waterloo? The answer will surprise.

As an interesting footnote, the painting appears in Dr No, the first James Bond film, where it’s on display in the villain’s lair giving the impression it was stolen to order.

It’s a British Library Thing

Every year I get a statement from the British Library setting out how many times Perking the Pansies has been borrowed from UK libraries. This is followed some time later by a payment. It’s only pennies per loan but it’s nice to know my camp old nonsense isn’t gathering too much dust 11 years after it was published.

UK publishers are obliged by law to supply copies of their books to the national libraries of Britain and Ireland, so it’s no surprise that Perking the Pansies can be found at the British Library, the national libraries of Scotland and Wales, the library of Trinity College, Dublin and the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. What is a surprise is that the book can also be picked up at libraries in Greenwich and Wandsworth in London and libraries in East Sussex and Greater Manchester.

What’s an even bigger surprise is that the book is available to borrow in Antwerp (Belgium), Illinois and New York state (USA), Auckland and Wellington (New Zealand) and Victoria and New South Wales (Australia).

But what is my camp old nonsense doing in the library of Harvard University? Blimey!

Another Death on the Nile

I love a whodunnit even when I know who did it. And who doesn’t know who did it in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile? It’s Kenneth Branagh’s second outing as the Belgium sleuth, with a tash so vigorous you wonder how it stays up. Branagh first cut his teeth as Poirot on Murder on the Orient Express back in 2017 where he introduced us to a more troubled, introspective private eye, quite different from the fastidious and slightly fey comic version we’ve come to expect. This time around we learn more about Poirot’s back story: a man scarred in every sense by the savage reality of the Great War. This isn’t quite as Agatha wrote it and, no doubt, purists will hate the update. When the elegant SS Karnak set forth once again on that fateful Nile cruise, many critics asked why bother? I, for one, enjoyed the choppy adventure.

The Book of Mormon: The Newest Testament

Since they switched the theatre lights back on, we’ve been playing catch-up with all the shows queuing up impatiently in the wings. Our latest gig was the UK tour of The Book of Mormon. Deliciously camp, rude, lewd and super crude, the song and dance show pulls no punches when ridiculing the fairy tales at the core of the Mormon credo – and by extension, organised religion in general. So there was a third biblical testament buried on a hillside in upstate New York? Who knew? Not the villagers in far-flung Uganda who had more pressing, real-world problems to deal with, like trigger-happy warlords, grinding poverty, AIDS and female genital mutilation. Ripe for conversion? The all-American dancing boys from Salt Lake City thought so. The desperate often are.

Credit: Paul Coltas

All’s well that ends well as the Bard once wrote and the show does have a happy ending because, in the end, we all need something to believe in, even if it’s just the power of the human spirit. By curtain call we were all on our feet. Yes, it’s that good.

As we left the theatre, we spotted a solitary Mormon elder politely handing out leaflets for the cause. Seems The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sees the show as an opportunity for a recruitment drive. Who said there’s no such thing as bad publicity?

Nuns and Nazis

I first watched The Sound of Music in the sixties at the tender age of seven. To see over the heads of the people in front of me, I sat on an upturned seat. Not that I saw that much anyway. I nodded off halfway through and didn’t wake up ‘til Dame Julie and co were heading for the hills.

Even though the film eventually became a Christmas staple on TV, I never actually sat through it. All I knew was that it was a tale of good versus evil with singalong tunes. And then the BBC exposed the truth about the von Trapps in a 2013 warts-and-all documentary. It turned out our heroes didn’t climb any mountain or ford any stream to escape the clutches of the nasty Nazis. No, they caught the 5.30 express to Italy. It was a bitter blow.

To restore my faith in the fairy tale, I jumped at the chance to see a new production at Norwich’s Theatre Royal by the Norfolk and Norwich Operatic Society. They’re amateur thesps but they always put on a good show.

As we necked our interval gins, I asked Liam,

So, when does the cute blond sing ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me?’

That’s from Cabaret.

Oh.

Seems I was mixing up my Nazis.

Overall, the production was charming, with some really sweet moments. Nuns and Nazis, what’s not to like? For us, the stand-out performance was from Sara Cubitt as the Mother Abbess. ‘Climb Every Mountain’ is a tough song to sing, and we held our breath as she warbled towards that devilishly difficult final note. Did she hit it? Oh yes. 

Belfast – Should We Stay or Should We Go?

I was a little nervous when I took my seat to watch Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film about the life of a working-class family in late sixties Belfast. It was a time when the Troubles really exploded on the streets, and I was dreading being slapped about the face by the grim senselessness of sectarianism.

But despite the nightmarish backdrop, there’s something incredibly warm and generous about the film. Set to a Van Morrison soundtrack (with a little help from Love Affair’s Everlasting Love) and shot in radiant black and white, the tender and funny script has a simple question at its heart – leave for a brighter future ‘across the water’ or stay for kith and kin and all that’s familiar. It was a choice faced by generations of Irish people – including our own.

The sparkling cast really deliver – anything with Judi Dench gets my vote – and despite the eye candy that is Jamie Dornan, the stand-out performance has to be from Jude Hill as Buddy, the young boy around whom the story revolves.

Do they stay or do they go? Here’s a clue. Sir Kenneth Branagh is now one of the UK’s foremost actors and directors.

Here’s the trailer…

The Nimmo Twins – Normal for Norfolk

After a six-year hiatus, local comedy heroes The Nimmo Twins (Owen Evans and Karl Minns) were back treading the boards at the Norwich Playhouse for the second of their twenty-fifth-anniversary shows. Despite their glittering quarter-century career, to our shame, we’d never heard of them, but then a couple of fellow villagers put us firmly in the picture.

I’m glad they did. In skit and sketch, satire and song, characters old and new, the Twins put us straight about all things normal for Norfolk – the ups and mostly downs of Norwich City Football Club, local petty bureaucrats who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, geriatric TV presenters well past their sell-by, livestock-lovin’ farmhands with single-digit IQs and flash Londoners with their fancy cars and holiday homes, all delivered in the broadest of Naarfuk and with tongues firmly in cheek. It’s a total, affectionate piss-take and it’s hysterical.

Heroes in Heels

Soppy, sentimental old fool that I am, I’m a sucker for a tear-jerker. I cried during the opening Circle of Life scene of the Lion King when I first saw it in the West End many moons ago. And I started to blub during the first few bars of Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace and carried on sobbing right through to the finale. Pass the Kleenex.

Last year Liam and I watched the film version of Everybody Talking About Jamie on Amazon Prime. There’s a scene midway through – a flashback to the dark days of the early nineties when the gossip on the street was of a ‘gay plague’ and gay men were bowing out to a hostile crowd.

A few brave folk fought back, and the rest, as they say…

“Even the Iron Lady couldn’t stop the show.”

It’s a time I remember well. Too well. Who could forget? Here’s the scene that had me bawling.

But then there are tears of joy too. We also saw Six, a musical about the wives of that old lecherous tyrant, Henry the Eighth. Despite their bleak destiny – divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived – the show delivers an uplifting, defiant message. It’s a message that seems to have struck an inspirational chord with young ladies everywhere judging by the audience at Norwich’s Theatre Royal and the flash mob at the Tower of London, where two of Henry’s queens lost their heads. The young faces say it all. Right, ladies, it’s time for your crowning glory. You’ve earned it.

Now that’s how to teach history.

Betty White, Thanks for the Laughs

I was so sad to hear of the death of my favourite Golden Girl, Betty White, just a few days before her centenary. She was the last of those amazing ladies from that amazing show. I was rather obsessed with The Golden Girls back in their heyday. I still am a bit. I have several of the earlier seasons on DVD, which I still watch from time to time. It’s a treat that still makes me laugh out loud. Way ahead of its time, the sharp and witty script, delivered with relish and style by the Girls, has endured while others just seem like old hat. And only a proper fan would buy a Golden Girls cookbook. Yep, that would be me then.

Betty White was already comedy gold when she landed the role of Rose Nylund, the kindly but hopelessly naïve dumb blonde from St Olav, Minnesota. Except, of course, those clever writers made sure Rose was not always quite as dumb as she seemed. Betty played the role superbly.

RIP Betty White. Thank you for the laughs.

In Step with Modern Britain

With all the endless doom and gloom swilling around us, it’s easy to forget just how far we’ve come. It says something incredibly powerful about our society when the three finalists of Strictly Come Dancing – the most popular show on British TV – were a black woman, a deaf actor and a same-sex couple, as voted for by the viewers. As critic Barbara Ellen put it in her Guardian review:

“A ground-breaking Strictly final in step with modern Britain.”

“… Strictly, and the BBC, at its best: everyone welcome, and everything all the better for it.”

Hot on the heels of Strictly came the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year, also a public vote. It was won by the child of Chinese-Romanian immigrants with a gay diver bringing up the rear in second place.

And then came the out-of-the-blue and very public marriage proposal on the stage of Norwich’s splendid Theatre Royal at the end of their Christmas panto production of Dick Whittington. When Joe popped the question, the kids went wild. Just as well Luke said yes!

Watch it on Facebook. Congratulations boys.