The British writer/actor Mark Farrelly has established his considerable reputation of telling the stories of iconic queer figures.
First Naked Hope, his one-man play about the legendary Quentin Crisp the flamboyant English writer, humorist, actor, life-class model, and at one-time rent boy. Crisp was a great self-publicist who gave outrageous interviews about his unusual life and attracted great curiosity in the UK and later in the US. He was very much sought after for his personal views on social manners and the cultivation of style.
Farrelly’s next work was Howerd’s End, a two-handed play exploring the life of legendary much-loved British comedian Frankie Howerd. His successful career took him from playing Variety Shows in Music Halls across the country into becoming one of the biggest TV stars of his generation. Howerd like so many entertainers of his time was a closeted gay man but he was an undisputed master of innuendo which he played up to the gallery who chose to know or not know about his sexuality.
Farrelly’s latest play is Jarman, a solo portrait of the artist, experimental film-maker, gardener, and leading gay activist Derek Jarman. He made his mainstream narrative filmmaking debut with Sebastiane (1976), about the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. This was one of the first British films to feature positive images of gay sexuality; its dialogue was entirely in Latin. Even at the end of his life in 1993, when he was dying from AIDS, Jarman made Blue which consists of a single shot of saturated blue color filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner
Jarman’s influence remains as strong as it was on the day AIDS killed him in 1994. But his story, one of the most extraordinary lives ever lived, has never been told. Until now. This vibrant new solo play written and performed by Farrelly brings Jarman back into being for a passionate, daring reminder of the courage it takes to truly live while you’re alive. A journey from Dungeness to deepest, brightest Soho and into the heart of one of our most iconoclastic artists.
Jarman, is at Greenwich Theatre, London on Jan 31st BUT check out Farrelly's Tour schedule to see where
else he is performing Jarman and Howerds End tooLabels: 2021, Derek Jarman, Greenwich Theatre, Mark Farrelly, writer/actor
