Young people need to come out in their own good time – no matter how many well-meaning people are willing you on to throw off those straight shackles and wrap yourself in the feather boa of gay pride!
Tom Allen is a good example of this and as we skip lightly through his memoir, we see multiple opportunities for him to make the leap. The choice of where and when and to whom sums up his faults and coincidentally ours.
Tom tells us the purpose for writing his memoirs (he is after all a tad young for such an exercise being only thirty-seven years old) is to find humor in those moments which cause us to feel shame and by laughing together at them through the book be a positive presence for the reader too.
Shame as a concept is explored throughout the book and one of the more timely and perceptive passages describes how ordinary working people are expected to endure the waves of war, famine or economic downturn with no cash or agency to control their circumstances and how it’s the generations to come that will still carry the feelings of worry and shame this hardship bred.
The 90’s were still not an easy time to grow up gay with a backdrop of the AIDS epidemic, an unequal age of consent, Section 28 and the soho nail bombers murderous rampage.
An incredibly sad passage is where Tom justifies his decision not to go to University. Although costs would have undoubtedly been a factor for a kid from a working-class family, he suggests that such a daunting social opportunity would have been “like the terror of starting secondary school all over again”. Negative life experience as a queer child clearly limiting his future opportunities. An extraordinary summer with the National Youth Theatre proves if not transformational, then certainly a helpful step in the right direction to a career in stand up. This career path could not be more contradictory for a shy person as (other than politician maybe…) could there be a more intrusive, public, and combative profession?
There are an increasing number of queer comedians, but the considerable success Tom had had (awards/ sold out tours/ and a sold-out performance at the Palladium in 2018) comes from the characteristics that set him apart as one of England’s true eccentrics. Someone who created a character for himself from a very early age “I dressed in outlandish period clothing to try to be someone else altogether”.
The fact that, at 37, he still lives at home with his mum and dad marks him out to be authentic in his eccentricity.
There are some passages that are horridly reminiscent for many queers and could be triggering, bringing back memories of school bullies. If this means we refresh our efforts to banish this in schools and resist the mocking of those who criticize the “woke brigade” then that’s is progress.
The letter to his younger self at the end is a popular therapy technique but very touching all the same. Whether writing such a book is an act of healing or catharsis for Allen, we can’t be sure, but as he said in the preface – we can all learn from his life.
https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/tom-allen/no-shame/9781529348903/ available on Amazon and good Bookshops everywhere.
REVIEW : JONNY WARD
Jonny Ward, Queerguru Contributing EDITOR is a drama graduate but has worked backstage for many years at venues such as The ROYAL ALBERT Hall, The 02, Southbank Centre and most recently at The NATIONAL THEATRE. He lives in Hoxton, London and is delighted to check out the latest, the hottest and the downright dodgy in queer culture for Queerguru.
