Coming of age at the height of the AIDS crisis
- Alan Hulme
- 23 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Manchester-based Hive North will stage David Drake’s landmark solo AIDS-crisis play The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me at the city's Hope Mill Theatre (next February 10-14).
Marking the play’s first Manchester staging in more than three decades, this new production will be part of LGBT History Month and celebrate 40 years of the HIV charity, George House Trust.
First seen in the early 1990s, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me charts a young gay man’s coming of age at the height of the AIDS crisis, moving between intimate memoir and public act of remembrance. Inspired by the activist spirit of Larry Kramer and ACT UP, the piece examines how a community organised, mourned and resisted. (For those unaware, Kramer was a playwright and activist who wrote The Normal Heart and the script of movie Women in Love among other works; who survived AIDS for more than 30 years and became a strong - often dismissed and derided - advocate of health and social welfare programs to educate gay men).
The production stars Gabriel Clark, British-Sardinian actor, writer and director and artistic director of Switch_MCR Theatre Company. He is best known on TV for playing Ollie Morgan on Channel 4’s Hollyoaks, following which he has worked on productions with the Royal Exchange, Octagon, Edge Theatre, Contact and HOME.
The show's director is Adam Zane, Hive North’s founder and an ambassador for George House Trust, whose credits include Channel 4’s Queer as Folk and as the writer and director of the acclaimed Be More Martyn: The Boy with the Deirdre Tattoo, and Jock Night.
Gabriel said: “I was instantly gripped by the play's ability to blend a coming-of-age story with the universal feelings of pain, rage, and helplessness in the face of injustice. Those feelings reverberate through the play and they echo loudly today”
Adam said: “I watched David Drake perform The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me over thirty years ago and it had a huge impact on me as an artist and an activist.
"Staging this revival is an opportunity to honour a landmark of queer theatre and the activism it speaks about. it’s a vital reminder of the power of activism and its continuing relevance for audiences today.”
More info and tickets here