background image

Dorothy Squires: Mrs Roger Moore

Where: Gilded Balloon, Teviot Row House, 13 Bristo Square, Edinburgh EH8 9AJ

When: Sunday 12 - Monday 27 August 2012

How much: £ 10/9 (£ 9/8 concessions)

With a pink feather boa, glitz and shed-loads of glamour, Al Pillay (Channel 4's The Comic Strip) stars in the Edinburgh run of Dorothy Squires: Mrs Roger Moore at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh, from 12 to 27 August 2012.

Dorothy Squires was among the biggest singing stars of the 1940s and 50s with hits including Say It with Flowers, Till, The Gypsy and My Way (the only version other than Sinatra's to enter the charts). As Mrs Roger Moore, she was her own worst enemy with a life of heartache including litigation, fire and flood disasters and rancorous relationships.

Dorothy is played by the fabulous Al Pillay, whose career spans theatre, film, cabaret, television, radio and music. The disco diva and maverick soul starred in The Comic Strip (Channel 4), Whatever You Want with Keith Allen and Four for Tonight with Ruby Wax. He had a Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit with Pistol in My Pocket, and appeared in the autobiographical play Glitter and Twisted in New York.

The show is written by Richard Stirling, whose previous work includes Julie Andrews: an Intimate Biography (Sunday Times top ten bestseller) and the recent sell-out adaptation of Ivor Novello's "Gay's the Word" (Finborough Theatre).


Beyond Tomorrow: Visions of the Future

Where: National Museum, Cardiff

When: 8-10 June 2012

I wouldn't even call myself an atheist as there is no name you'd give to someone that doesn't believe that the Wizard of Oz lives in the sky above Kansas either, or that other fairy tale about Goldilocks and the three bears. I severed all connections to the religious inherently fascist core patriarchal construct of monotheistic madness years ago. Perhaps it might have had something to do with my hypocritical mother splitting my head open in three places with a hairbrush to get the effeminate evil faggot demon out of me???? when i was only 8 years old, in the name of some beasts called god and jesus! I'm not a great joiner-upper of clubs or organisations, but i know in my own way I've always been a humanist because I've always managed to do good without god, and follow the golden rule of empathy towards others in spite of life's ostracism, flak, ridicule and trauma, that my species have bestowed upon me throughout my journey in this fleeting life.{NO SELF PITY REQUIRED}

Outside of my audiences I have to admit that I am not a fan of my species, but I do believe we must do whatever good we can from wherever we are. These are the main tenets of being in the human condition and not installed by religious dogma - after all, we cannot give religion credit for human liberalism as it has proved the warped and twiched! opposite for so long. Because when people believe in Absurdities they commit Atrocities, and do not seem to be able to help themselves either not even in the name of an all powerful, loving, benevolent tolerant god.{who made that one up?}

Give me logic and reason and moreover evidence any day of the week, not mentally ill superstations.