It’s been a long, long while since I last posted on this blog. To be precise it was on January 18th 2023, a post called “Cabaret Is Really…Straight, Part 1”, about how much blooming fun the current London run of Cabaret is (and it’s still going!) but how surprisingly heterosexual it is despite its entry in the queer pantheon. And in a funny sort of way, the observations in that post link to why I haven’t written in so long. Because while I could spend my time critiquing the lack of nuanced queer representation in plays, novels, TV shows etc, I have another option – to write plays, novels and TV shows containing more nuanced queer representation.

Which is precisely what I’ve been doing. My play Dumbledore Is So Gay played at the Southwark Playhouse in south London last summer and it was an absolute blast. In other good news, I have my first novel coming out next summer. But more on that another time. Criticism is important in the artistic world as pieces of art are held up to scrutiny and analysed according to different standards and expectations. Nevertheless, there would be no criticism without creation and that’s what artists do – we create. And for many of us, we absolutely love it.

And I say this because we are living through a time of near constant destruction. For me, a UK resident, having just seen a Labour government take power, almost immediately (and entirely unsurprisingly) many Labour Members of Parliament began doubling down on their transphobia, trying to make the lives of trans, genderqueer, gender-questioning and non-binary people of all ages so much harder. What a waste and an abuse of power. But for those of us not committed to destruction there is the chance to create, hence my prolonged absence from humanconditioned.com. And I hope, in time, to be able to share more about the joy of creation and its absolute necessity in the face of destruction. Of course we must critique – of course the contemporary production of Cabaret needs to be analysed from a queer, intersectional feminist perspective…of course! But before I get back to editing my novel and writing my next play I would like to say thank you. I get to see the ‘back end’ of this website and I’m thrilled that so many folks are still clicking the links and reading the articles. It means so much to me that the words I write get read and, for that, I am deeply grateful. Thank you for still reading 🙂