Tim, the gay professor from The Circle, has released a bizarre LGBT Christmas song
Tim Wilson, the eccentric cat-owning professor from The Circle, has released a Christmas song. (zontulfilmsltd/ YouTube)
Tim Wilson, the eccentric, gay professor from Channel 4’s reality show The Circle, has released a bizarre LGBT+ Christmas song “in the hope of making the Christmas charts”.
The Circle saw contestants living in isolation in an apartment complex, never meeting in person and interacting through an online messaging system, ‘The Circle’.
They could choose to be themselves or make up a new identity, in their quest to become the most popular and win £100,000.
While the game show this summer was won by gay disability activist Paddy Smyth, gay theology professor and cat owner Tim Wilson also took home £30,000 as the “Viewer’s Champion”.
Now Wilson has teamed up with musician Stew Simpson, who contacted him after his appearance on The Circle to propose creating an LGBT+ Christmas song combining music hall and grime to “repair the holes in our society”.
Simpson told News & Star: “It feels like a Christmas miracle, I saw this lovely man on the television and I thought ‘I’ll just send a song out, nothing will happen.’ Then a few weeks later we’re driving in a car together.”
‘Love Simply Love’ combines English and Polari, a secret language which began in the mid-19th century. It has now largely fallen out of use, but was historically spoken by gay men and female impersonators.
Wilson said: “We wanted to make a song that reached out to the LGBTQI audience and Polari is very much part of the history of the lesbian and gay community.”
He added: “Trolling, a word which we now have on the internet, is actually a word that comes from Polari.”
The song and music video follow a strange storyline in which Wilson has lost a rabbit, followed by Simpson rapping in Polari and Wilson rapping in English to translate.
The video includes animations created by Wilson, and the pair also use sign language to make the song even more inclusive. Wilson added that he hopes the combination of grime and music hall will “cross the age barrier”.
He continued: “We need to come together collectively, repair the holes in our society, learn from each other and grow together.
“Humour is important. I hope we are telling a story as well as putting across a message and having a bit of festival fun at the end of this year.”
