Double Ender

Who owns history? A Manchester Tour guide and leading expert on the lost language of Gay men discuss via a fast-paced theatre double-bill touring to the North of England this autumn.  See it from Thursday 16 September onwards! 

Double-Ender is a fresh off the page double bill of monologues performed and written by Joshua Val Martin, (Bruntwood Prize, Royal Exchange Theatre), and Jez Dolan, (V&A and British Museum). 

The fast-paced show is touring this autumn: Manchester, Oldham, Bury and Huddersfield.   

Double-Ender shares personal, candid, and sometimes laugh-out-loud stories, about Queer people – past and present – living, learning, and loving in a rapidly changing Manchester.

Joshua Val Martin is a real-life tour guide - in-between writing for stage and TV – and through his company, Free Manchester Walking Tours, he guides locals and tourists around the city he’s made his home. He shares stories of his uniquely diverse audience ranging from the Uruguayan rugby team, and Noel Gallagher, to customers for the city’s various fetish nights. Joshua experiences the dark underbelly of tour guide turf wars which leave him pondering who, ultimately, has more right to tell the story of a city…

Jez Dolan is a part stand-up, part-lecturer, and fantbulosa sing-a-long host with something of a cult following for projects including the translation of the King James Bible into Polari; which was exhibited at Manchester’s John Rylands Library in xxx.  The Polari Bible is now in Bury Museum and Art Gallery’s permanent collection.  

What’s Polari?  Jez is here to explain.

Polari was the subversive and lost language of Queer men spoken in the gay pubs and secret spaces of yesteryear. The coded language was once heard in TV and radio comedy and hid a then illegal homosexual subculture in plain sight with some audiences ‘in the know and in on the joke’ and others not having the faintest clue. By the end of Jez’s gallop through the history of Polari, audiences will have learned their actual Polari; it’s bona to vada your dolly old eek!

Audiences will leave the theatre with a far wider and cheekier vocabulary than the one they went in with…  That’s a promise.

7.30pm Thur 16 – Sat 18 September (signed performance: Fri 17 September), The Edge, Manchester, £14/£12 concs, 0161 282 9776 edgetheatre.co.uk

7.30pm Fri 24 September, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield, £16.50 also £5 tickets for the under 30s. 01484 430528 thelbt.org

7pm Thur 30 September, The Met, Bury, £13 0161 761 2216 themet.org.uk

7.30pm Thur 14 October, Oldham Coliseum Theatre, £10/£7 under 26s, 0161 624 2829, coliseum.org.uk

Published: 1-Sep-2021: (6340)