Last night Darren, Stuart and I went down to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in glitzy Vauxhall to attend Jill Nalder's launch of her book Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret through the AIDS Crisis.
Made famous by It's a Sin, Jill's book was a labour of love.
Partly as a fundraiser for THT, the night started off as an interview / Q&A with Jill. Then things moved on to a full-on musical theatre cabaret by the WestEnders performing songs from Les Misérables, Dreamgirls, Evita, Phantom of the Opera and much else besides. The night ended with a book signing - all the books being bought from a Gays The Word concession stand.
For those of you perhaps not familiar with her story, when Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends - of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own - she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get.
But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the 'gay flu', and Jill and her friends now found their formerly carefree existence under threat.
In this moving memoir, Jill tells the true story of her and her friends' lives during the AIDS crisis - juggling a busy West End career while campaigning for AIDS awareness and research, educating herself and caring for the sick. Most of all, she shines a light on those who were stigmatised and shamed, and remembers those brave and beautiful boys who were lost too soon.
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