Southbank’s Christmas tribute to mark centenary of Quentin Crisp’s birth
Christmas Day 2008 marks the centenary of Quentin Crisp’s birth.
The flamboyant English writer, actor and self-styled ‘stately homo of England’ died in 1999.
The House of Homosexual Culture and Southbank Centre are to celebrate his life on December 13th with a mixture of talks, discussion, performance, dressing up and a special ‘Queen’s Telegram’.
The evening features people who knew Quentin Crisp and worked with him, including his biographers Paul Bailey and Andrew Barrow.
They will examine Crisp’s flair for self-invention and provide a critical insight into his status as a writer and Adrian Goycoolea, Crisp’s great nephew, talks about Quentin’s relationship with his family.
Actor and friend of Crisp, Bette Bourne, performs an extract from the one-man show Resident Alien, which is based on Crisp’s writings.
There will also be an exclusive viewing of extracts from the new ITV drama An Englishman in New York, starring John Hurt, who again plays Quentin Crisp in this sequel to the classic 1975 ITV drama The Naked Civil Servant, based on the first volume of Crisp’s autobiography.
And as it’s nearly Christmas, there’s a Quentin Lookalike Competition, and the audience is asked to get imaginative with their costumes for the chance to win a special Christmas prize: The winner will be photographed for the cover of QX magazine’s Christmas issue.
