It was back in the 1980s when I first made the trek from London to San Francisco, and in particular, the Castro. For a wide-eyed slightly naive queer Brit it was an experience that I would never ever forget. It’s where I really fell in love for the very first time. Not with any particular beau (despite some earnest efforts) but with the city itself. It was all thanks to the Tales Of The City in which I discovered Barbary Lane and the infamous Anna Madrigal.
It was a series of book that had started out as a newspaper serial back in 1974 and which were eventually picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle. In these stories author Armisted Maupin shared his passion for both the city and the burgeoning LGBTQ+ community in his made-up world that seemed like nirvana to most of us.
Unwittingly as I read and fell in love with the series of Tales books, our real world was about to turned upside with a global AIDS pandemic. Maupin included this in the later books of the series (with many of his friends dying) with thinly veiled references to both Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. I appreciate in hindsight that it made for a refreshing change to have a gay man’s take on the pandemic amidst all the hysteria of the straight tabloid press
In 2019 brand new generations discovered Maupin and Tales of The City when Netflix produced a star sequel miniseries. While not a direct adaptation of any of Maupin’s novels like the first three miniseries were, this 10-part series takes the core characters along with certain characters and elements from Maupin’s later “Tales” novels and weaves them into a new story set mostly in the present day
Now following several successful UK tours, bestselling, Maupin, is heading back out on the road to celebrate the long-awaited tenth novel in the Tales of the City series- Mona of the Manor. On each stop he will be joined by a special guest host as he recounts his favourite tales from the past four decades, offering his own engaging observations on society and the world we inhabit.
In Brighton it will be Juno Dawson, then Russell Tovey in London, Ben Hunte in Edinburgh, Simon Savidge in Bristol, Rory O’Neill in Dublin and Jack Guinness in Manchester.
