Manchester UK is considered the country’s second LGBTQ+ city (after London). It dates its claim way back to the 1940s when The Union Pub had drag shows which became extremely popular with US servicemen.  In the 1960s the city’s  Homosexual Law Reform Committee was one of the very first groups behind the movement to legalize homosexuality.  Then fast forward to the 1990s and Manchester’s ‘gay village’ was the setting for Russell Davies’ groundbreaking TV series Queer as Folk.

In 2015  Joseph Houston and William Whelton a gay couple from London who had been inspired by the highly regarded Off West End Theatres came to town.  On their hands and knees and with a shoestring budget they converted an old Cotton Mill into a theatre ….. with some help from family ….. Will’s mum tiled the bathrooms and Joseph’s grandfather gave the doorframes a lick of paint, 

They officially opened the doors of Hope Mill Theatre in  November of 2015, which not quickly became one of the most successful and reputable independent venues in England but only 3 years later it won the Fringe Venue of The Year at The Stage award.

It has just finished a run of Animal by Jon Bradford about a  gay, disabled ad profoundly horny young man.   In June it will present the Unseemly Women’s fourth annual Shakespeare which will be their version of Lear.  

However what caught our attention before that was QWEER SHORTS, Manchester’s newest, boldest, LGBTQ+ new writing project, which the Theatre is introducing as a  new regular night for brand-new LGBTQ+ work.s!

They promise that the nights will be an exciting mix of early work, including script-in-hand, works-in-progress, as well as more developed pieces ready for funding.

Follow
https://hopemilltheatre.co.uk/