SUNDAY 12th FEBRUARY 2023
Join us for an afternoon and evening of discussion, performance, literature and film, exploring myriad lesbian, bisexual & queer women’s lives throughout history!
PART 1. 12.00 – 4.30pm – Chapter Arts Centre – Stiwdio Seligman
The Stories Of Their Lives
Discussion, Theatre and Literature
TICKET LINK: https://www.chapter.org/whats-on/performance/lezdiff-lgbtq-history-month-the-stories-of-their-lives/9082
PERFORMANCE 1 – Queer Tales From Wales presents: ‘Brenhines y Llyn / Queen of the Lake’ (15 mins)
“Robust are the females hard labour attends them
With the fist they could knock down the man who offends them”
Set in North Wales in 1780 or thereabouts, a story about strong woman Merged ferch Ifan and her Coppermine girl. Includes Welsh cakes and gossip. Told by Jane Hoy.
TALK & Q&A – Norena Shopland Historian (45 mins)
Norena Shopland discusses her work and tells us about a cluster of very different Welsh women believed to be queer – Katherine Philips known as the Welsh Sappho, Gwen John a Welsh artist and the two loves of Cranogwen, Fanny and Jane. She explores how looking at history in different ways can show us more about historic people than we could have imagined.
Norena Shopland is an author/historian specialising in the history of sexual orientation and gender identity. Her book Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales (Seren Books, 2017) is the first completely historical work on Welsh LGBTQ+ history. Queering Glamorgan and A Practical Guide to Searching LGBTQIA Historical Records (Routledge, 2020) have become very popular as toolkits to aid people in doing research. Her latest book is A History of Women in Men’s Clothes: from cross-dressing to empowerment (Pen and Sword Books, 2021).
[20 MINUTE INTERVAL]
PERFORMANCE 2 – Queer Tales From Wales presents: A Moral Amazon: the story of Miss Amy Dillwyn (45 mins)
Jane Hoy and Helen Sandler tell the story of Amy Dillwyn of Swansea, novelist, industrialist, feminist, dog lover and cigar smoker! A lively tale told with a little help from the audience.
[20 MINUTE INTERVAL]
PERFORMANCE 3 – Behind The Lines presents: ‘Tell Me I’m Forgiven – The Story of Gwen Farrar and Norah Blaney’ (60 mins)
Meet two fascinating women who created a groundbreaking double act in 1918 and went on to take the West End and Broadway by storm. Gwen Farrar and Norah Blaney spent twenty years in the limelight, enjoying a harmonious relationship on stage and a rollercoaster partnership behind the scenes. Alison Child reads from her acclaimed biography of the pair and, with her partner Rosie Wakley, evokes this fascinating story that spans two world wars and the glamorous 1920s.
BOOK SIGNING, NETWORKING & SOCIALISING (30 mins)
Chat to the writers and performers about their work, buy signed copies of their books.
PART 2 – 5.00 – 7.30pm – Chapter Arts Centre – Cinema 2
FILM + Q&A
TICKET LINK: https://www.chapter.org/whats-on/film/lezdiff-gateways-grind-qa/9085
GATEWAYS GRIND (15 Cert, UK, 2021)
Directed by Jacquie Lawrence
GATEWAYS GRIND is the first ever documentary about the iconic Gateways Club in London, probably the most famous lesbian club in the world, made even more notorious by its ten-minute scene in the film ‘The Killing of Sister George’. For the first time ever we go through the Gateways’ infamous ‘green door’ and see and hear from the women who found friends, sex and love in a small basement club just off the Kings Road in swinging Chelsea. Won in a bet by Ted Ware in 1943 and open for over four decades, the club was a bohemian sanctuary from the start, becoming lesbian only from 1967 under the watchful management of Ted’s wife, Gina Ware. In this entertaining film we follow writer and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, as she traces her first visit to the ‘Gates’ and follows the quest to award the club a Blue Plaque to commemorate its important place in lesbian history and visibility.
Q&A
Join us for a post screening discussion about the film.
Venue Address: Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1QE