QX Magazine

Hold on to your weaves… there’s a new cabaret diva strutting around London town. Ahead of her glittering new production The Velma Celli Show we sent Lee Dalloway to have words with the gorgeous Velma Celli (AKA Ian Stroughair)...   QX: Hey Ian. What have you been up to today? Lee, where can I start? I have been run ragged, and...

High scoring rugby union international Ben Cohen now has a high profile as a gay icon. He was the Gay Times Sports Personality of the Year 2008, an Attitude cover boy in 2009, and last year he supported GMFA’s Gay Sports Day. Now he wants you to come and have a beer at The 2 Brewers so he can...

David McGillivray wonders how long it’ll be before another English Premiership footballer comes out of the closet.       It’s a well-known fact that every single one of the 4,000 professional footballers in England is heterosexual. Not only that, but since football began in 1863 - that means we’re talking nearly 150 years - there’s been only one gay player. OK. Reality check...

What happens when the ‘ardest team in the Sunday Soccer League comes up against an all-gay side? That’s the story of Kick Off, Rikki Beadle Blair’s latest film. To find out more, Lee Dalloway met up with three of its gorgeous, homoxual-leaning stars to talk balls   STEPHEN HOO LEE: How are you today, dear? I’m very well, the weather is lovely and...

Last in a series in which David McGillivray profiles some forgotten but fascinating gay pioneers. This week: MP and the poet...   WILLIAM BANKES: COUNTRY HOUSE RESCUE As far as this series is concerned, he’s the oldest, the most forgotten, the most important. William Bankes was an early 19th century aristocrat with a taste for the finest things in life and the...

The closing night of gay theatrical den Oval House’s recent ‘Transgressions’ season, featured cabaret and avant garde performance impresario Nathan Evans’ suitably off-kilter take on the world’s greatest woes with the rather un-catchily titled, ‘I Love You But We Only Have Fourteen Minutes To Save The Earth’ (taken from the wonderfully camp film ‘Flash Gordon’!). The concept is simple: take...

We can’t believe that 79CXR is almost a grown-up! Seventeen years after first flinging open its doors, the Charing Cross Road stalwart has probably had its most re-energising year to date. Lee Dalloway chatted to head honcho Dave Bunce about what’s to come…   LEE: 79CXR has had a new lease of life this last year or so. What would you...

Viva the original disco diva! Soul singer Loleatta Holloway died March 21st 2011 from heart failure at her home in Chicago. She was 64 years old and is survived by four children. With her musical legacy, Loleatta Holloway was possibly THE finest Diva in dance music history. However loud the pounding pianos and orchestral backing may have been, Loleatta’s irreplaceable...

Peccadillo’s sixth collection of gay shorts come from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Korea and Hawaii. With a couple of wacky comical exceptions, these eight films are darker and heavier than we expect. But this means that they get us thinking about big issues like homophobia, painful breakups and misplaced crushes. They’re also more moving than shorts usually are. And sexier...

Award winning comedy actor Charlie Hides, the man behind Kandi Kane-Baxter and Laquisha Jonz, has recently launched a new YouTube channel, featuring his various comic creations. We sat down with the busy cabaret star for a chin-wag…   When did you start making videos? As a kid I was always mucking about with a video camera, making movies in the back garden...