CityLife

Must see: Queer Up North 2010

Meow Meow

Turning 18 is a rite of passage – a momentous and vintage year subject to a lot of rose-tinted hindsight as soon as you clock over into 19.

And it’s also a birthday that Queer Up North intends to mark in grand style. This year’s programme, which formally kicks off on Tuesday, may not have the big star names of last year, but the scheduling is actually all the finer for it.

There are dozens of big nights out kicking off right across the city in the fortnight ahead, starting gently with several theatre and arts events – including experimental art piece Three, which brings together a trio of performances created separately but performed together to examine what ‘queer’ means in 2010.

It isn’t the only standout art project in the weeks ahead. In fact, threatening to overshadow almost everything else on the calendar is the return of Ultimate Holding Company, an art group best known for previously recreating Guantanamo Bay in Hulme for 10 days. Six years later, it invited 100 volunteers to be tattooed with the names of endangered species in Extinked.

The group returns with Exam, the brainchild of Joe Richardson and Jai Redman, developed with local community groups. What is it? Well, your guess is as good as ours, but frankly we’re terrified by the brief: ‘One thing is certain,’ it warns, ‘you will be tested’.

Brave volunteers can apply to take part via exam@queerupnorth.com for the big event at Maxwell Hall on May 23.

The rest of the entertainment is fortunately as exciting as Exam sounds terrifying.

From provocative poetry at open mic night Freed Up (greenroom, Thursday, free) to Peter Grist & Co’s evening of mixed dance (Contact, May 22, £10/£6) and the remarkable pairing of Manchester’s premiere queer club Bollox with NYC invaders Pussy Faggot (Legends, May 21, £6), there’s a little bit of something to float everyone’s boat – gay or straight.

HIV And Culture, and the continued rise of the virus despite over 25 years of awareness campaigns, is up for debate at the Library Theatre (May 22, £3), as are gay identities in music and Chinese cinema, while author Stella Duffy reads from her 12th novel ahead of publication over at bluu (May 23, £5).

For the big weekend, the Spiegeltent takes pride of place again on Sackville Street, in the heart of the gay village, and much cabaret is planned.

Among the guaranteed draws are last year’s favourite avant garde madame Empress Stah (this year, there’s a promise she’ll swing naked from the chandeliers), La Clique star and David Bowie’s newest musical obsession Meow Meow and a massive night of comedy, music and story telling with TV broadcaster, writer and self-proclaimed ‘chubby glamourpuss’ Amy Lamé and her Grand Finale.

All you have to do, then, is keep up...

Various venues - May 18 to 31, 2010 - various prices. Visit www.queerupnorth.com for full listings.