The exhibition will explore the growth of the movement both in London and elsewhere, from highlighting the Gay Liberation Front activists who created street theatre to Gay Sweatshop touring plays that changed lives of audiences in isolated communities. As well, the exhibition celebrates the radical drag of Bloolips and the lesbian camp of Hard Corps and Parker & Klein and the advent of Black Lesbian, Gay and Queer work in the late 1980s. 

Radical Rediscovery: Homosexual Acts & Beyond takes a deep dive into work that grew from these early beginnings, the arguments and influences, the companies and characters as well as the struggle against censorship with the passing of Clause 28 and the impact of HIV AIDS on and in the theatre.

In 2024, London Performance Studios presented Radical Rediscovery: Feminist theatre in Britain 1969-1992. Once again the exhibition is curated by London Performance Studios Associate Artist Dr Susan Croft, whose ongoing archive project Unfinished Histories is dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history of alternative theatre in Britain from the 1960s to the early 90s.

Dr Susan Croft says: “50 years ago Ed Berman, founder of influential arts project Inter-Action agreed to host Britain’s first Gay theatre season at the Almost Free Theatre in Soho. The press came in droves because as Alan Wakeman, one of the producers and a founder of Gay Sweatshop said: ‘We were saying, ‘Yeah, we’re gay – so what? and having the audacity to put on plays about what life is like for gay people’. Runs were extended, moving to the Duke of Argyll pub and then the ICA and that first season was all plays by men but in 1976, Gay Sweatshop staged Jill Posener’s Any Woman Can, and toured this nationally. Julie Parker, who acted in it says: ‘People would come up …and talk to you afterwards… in tears… and say, ‘That’s me, that’s my story, that’s my life,’ and ‘I’ve never met people like you before.’ Julie went on to run The Drill Hall, a key London home for Lesbian and Gay performance. 

This exhibition celebrates that early history along with lesser-known stories such as that of Bradford-based company The General Will who in 1975, controversially re-formed from an agit-prop group to a primarily working class lesbian and gay theatre company, making work with a wide range of community groups. Meanwhile In South London, the inhabitants of gay squats in Railton Road, Brixton  were setting up their own activist theatre group the Brixton Faeries, Bloolips were performing in Notting Hill and numerous other lesbian and gay theatre groups such as Hormone Imbalance, Character Ladies, and Consenting Adults in Public were forming.

Through this exhibition, a linked symposium and a series of readings, ranging from Maureen Duffy’s Rites (1969) a version of the Bacchae, set in a women’s toilet  to the first play by British Black gay writer Martin Patrick, at Oval House in 1987, Radical Rediscovery: Homosexual Acts & Beyond will look in detail at this marginalised history and its impact on LGBTQ+ theatre today. Through a series of microgrants to young artists, we are also commissioning a series of new works-in-progress inspired by these earlier histories.” 

As well as an exhibition symposium on Friday November 7 and Saturday November 8, London Performance Studios and Unfinished Histories will shortly be announcing a programme of staged readings and informal pop-up talks taking place over the course of the run. 

About Dr Susan Croft

Dr Susan Croft’s Associate Artist residency at London Performance Studios includes Fifty Years Of The Fight For Inclusion (FYFFI), a three-year project initiated to mark the fifty-year anniversaries of three key moments in the history of theatre including the first Women’s Theatre Festival in Britain in 1973 and work that followed in 1974, the first Gay Theatre Festival in Britain in 1975 and the publication of Naseem Khan’s ground-breaking report The Arts Britain Ignores, by the Commission for Racial Equality in 1976. As an associate artist and to mark these anniversaries, Susan Croft is working each year to research and revisit selected performances and companies in the Unfinished Histories archive and share them with others through readings, workshops, the exhibition and symposium and the publication via Montez Press. To find out more please visit https://www.londonperformancestudios.com/unfinished-histories In 2025 she edited the first collection Radical Rediscoveries: Performance Texts from the Women’s Theatre Movement 1969-1987 making available rare work, most of it never before published. For more details visit: https://www.montezpress.com/catalogue/scores/radical-rediscoveries-performance-texts-from-the-womens-theatre-movement-1969-1987/ 

About Unfinished Histories

Unfinished Histories was founded in 2006 by Dr Susan Croft and Jessica Higgs and later established as an independent organisation in 2012. Through extensive interviews and archival work, Unfinished Histories records and highlights the innovative alternative theatre of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, especially the pioneering contributions of marginalised communities, including Black, Asian, disabled, and LGBTQ+ communities, women and other politically engaged theatre groups, ensuring their transformative legacy is recognised and remembered. Instagram @unfinishedhistories

About London Performance Studios

London Performance Studios is a queer container for the research, generation, and promotion of artistic voices that meet in the space between the white cube of the gallery and the black box of the theatre. LPS seeks to queer artistic process, operating within radically transparent and intersectional structures. We champion the politics of making a scene, whether on stage or out in the world. Instagram @london_performance_studios

To Visit London Performance Studios:

By Bus – The nearest bus stop is Manor Grove or Penarth St (0.1 mi to LPS) or Old Kent Road (0.3 mi to LPS)
By Train – Regular trains run from London Bridge to South Bermondsey (0.3 mi to LPS)
By Overground – To Surrey Quays station / New Cross Gate / Queens Road Peckham / Bermondsey
By Car – Parking available on request