Queer Diary Reading Event Will Host Biggest Show Yet This Month

Queer Diary, the only live teenage diary reading evening for the LGBTQIA+ community, has announced their biggest event yet, Queer Diary + School Disco at Rich Mix this May. LGBTQIA+ adults are invited to read extracts from their teenage diaries to a live audience, in the spirit of celebration, solidarity and silliness. Through sharing real teenage journal entries, love-letters, poetry, and fanfiction, Queer Diary brings together LGBTQIA+ people of a wide range of ages, identities, and backgrounds. 

 

By popular demand, following the diary readings, audiences are encouraged to stay for a School Disco themed afterparty, inviting LGBTQIA+ people to wear what they want and dance with whoever they want with a DJ taking song requests and dedications, in a chance to do-over their school disco as adults. 

 

In June, Queer Diary host Beth Watson will present, Hasbian, a comedy about coming out as a lesbian, only to discover that boys are also appealing. Hasbian uses Beth's real teenage diaries, music, and animated projections of teen-movie actors from the noughties to tell a story of growing up queer in Brighton under Section 28, the 1988 – 2003 law prohibiting the “teaching of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. Dripping in equal measures with heartfelt earnestness and sharp irony, Hasbian exposes queerphobia in the most liberal of cities. Hasbian will play at Omnibus Theatre from 25th – 29th June.  

 

Beth Watson said, “I could never have predicted, when we ran the first Queer Diary night, that it would get as big as this. It was conceived as a one-off bit of fun, and now we're hosting sold out events every month. It feels only right to celebrate with the big end-of-term disco. All of the dance moves and outlandish outfits from our youth, but without the adolescent awkwardness this time round! Diary-reading is a huge adrenaline rush: My heart always starts thumping, thinking my younger-self would be horrified to know how much I reveal in Hasbian! But it's also massively affirming to stand alongside so many other queer people of all ages, genders, identities and backgrounds, daring to share their own teenage hijinks at Queer Diary.” 

 

Queer Diary CIC began as a Zoom event during 2020 lockdowns, with the first in-person diary-reading night in 2021. The company has been hosting regularly sold-out monthly nights at The Common Press since 2022. Queer Diary pop-up events have also toured across the country, including to Gala Durham, Tom Thumb Margate, DINA Sheffield, Bank Vault Aberystwyth, and Edinburgh Fringe.  

 

Beth Watson is a performer, writer and the host of Queer Diary as well as the founder of queer feminist theatre organisation Bechdel Theatre and co-host of Bechdel Theatre Podcast. Other work includes Leave Something To Remember at Stanley Arts; Sing-derella at Omnibus Theatre; MANdemic at VAULT Festival, Omnibus Theatre, and Camden People's Theatre. 

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