By Imogen Holland
Based on a short film by Edward Sebastian Norton, Love and Pride was presented by Salford Pride during Greater Manchester Hate Crime Awareness Week.
Thomas Mccullough adapted the short film into a stage show to show audiences the change in LGBT+ history throughout the years.
Creator Edward Norton spoke about where the idea of the short film came from:
“We had to make a video for social action for a practical course at college and I decided to base it around LGBT+ rights”.
“I am a cis gender male, but I identify as pansexual and having to explain that to so many people what pansexual is; people get so caught up in the labels we are all people at the end of the day, and I think we should all be treated as people.”
The show showed the life of LGBT+ people within different years and the first story started with Dave, Mark and Claire discussing how it would be easier to keep their sexuality a secret after Mark is attacked.
From there we see how times have moved on but not really changed.
[Pictured] Cast and creators of Love & Pride: Ruby Tebbs, Graham Rimmer, Edd Norton, Thomas McCullough, Jack Parker, Megan Hayward, Benton Hodge (seated left), Naomi Okonjo and Ethan Yendell (seated right).
Speaking after the show, the cast agreed that there is still more to be done for the LGBT+ community.
Benton Hodge who played Charlie in the final story said:
“Personally I think it would be that I can go on holiday without basing it off Wikipedia telling me where I can go where I won’t be deported or where I won’t be killed. Being trans myself I think that other trans people shouldn’t have to wait as long for NHS services because it is a 5 year wait. I am lucky that my parents can pay for surgery so I think later on trans people shouldn’t have to wait that long.”
The second story saw two friends Beth and Sophie having a conversation about Beth’s sexuality.
The discussion of how people view bisexuals was one that no doubt many bisexual people will have had before but was handled by writer Thomas McCullough very well.
Thomas said:
“I feel like I tried to generalise it so it can reach out to people who are open minded. I didn’t try to make it too aggressive. I wanted it to be a bit light not stray away from things that actually happened but at the same time trying to make it reach a lot of demographics.”
The final story was based around Charlie and the transition they went through, and the comments people would make during that time.
It showed that even family members may not understand what is going on, which can hurt those transitioning.
The whole stage show did great in representing the lives and the struggles and discrimination those in the LGBT+ community face.
Lee Bowditch CEO of Salford Pride spoke about what he wants from this:
“Events like this we want to set up to give more education one of the main plans I want to do in the next couple of years is shift plays like this into schools so kids can actually see that being trans, bi, lesbian or gay is acceptable. I would like to say thank you to all of the cast and obviously Graham for producing it. I know it has been quite an ordeal to get people together to act in quite a short time.”
The podcast and video versions will be available soon to view for those who missed the performance.