Drew Griffiths: Case Unsolved

AN East Lancashire MP is helping a Darwen man try to get an unsolved murder case from the 1980s reopened.

Jake Berry is calling on police to reopen their investigation into the murder of Drew Griffiths.

Mr Griffiths, an actor and playwright, was killed at the age of 37 in a homophobic attack near the Elephant and Castle area in London in 1984, but no one was ever arrested.

Mr Berry, who represents Rossendale and Darwen, began writing to the Metropolitan Police after Darrener Glynn Kelly, a friend of Mr Griffiths, began looking for support in trying to get the case looked at again.

Mr Kelly, who worked with Mr Griffiths at the Stables Theatre in Manchester in the 1970s, said that the murder of the gay activist was often on his mind.

He said: “Since coming back to live in Darwen after working in the United States, Drew’s murder has been in my head a lot.

“Drew was a wonderful person, I can’t emphasise enough how witty and clever he was and it’s just an injustice that this case has not been solved.

“People from his past are already dying for various reasons, it’s important we try and get this case reopened now and Jake Berry has been terrific in helping me do this.”

Mr Griffiths founded the Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company in 1974 to try and expose and end misrepresentations of homosexuals.

Mr Berry said that it was a ‘scandal’ that the killer got away with the murder.

He said: “Drew’s friends quite rightly want assurances that all potential avenues to solve this murder are pursued.”

“It is an absolute scandal that this case was not properly investigated, there is someone out there who has literally got away with murder.

The Metropolitan Police is reviewing case files and is yet to say whether it will be formally reopened. 

Lancashire Telegraph.

Can't see this getting anywhere, but there you go.

Alan Wakeman: 1936-2015

'Reluctant revolutionary', unreconstructed hippy, Sohovian, teacher, translator, musician, key member of London GLF, and a founder of Gay Sweatshop.

Check out his groovy website!

Simon Callow: In Praise Of Gay Sweatshop

When I was asked, by this to me at the time hilariously named Gay Sweatshop, to read for the part of Toby in Martin Sherman’s play Passing By, I was highly sceptical. I was out, all right, to every one in my circle, and joyously romping around in the gay pleasure gardens. I endorsed gay liberation with every fibre of my being, I believed that more and better sex was the solution to everything, but I could not see the point of this sort of ghetto theatre. What next, I thought. Plays by chartered accountants, about chartered accounts, for chartered accountants?

Then I read the play – a very simple, highly romantic piece about two sweet young men who have an affair – and I was stopped in my tracks. I realised I had never read another play in which two men have a romantic affair and never once mention being gay. I immediately said yes. But I had no inkling of what performing that play in front of a gay audience would be like. The sense of their truth being told, of them in their ordinary lives suddenly existing, was overwhelming. I don’t believe I’ve done anything more rewarding or more emotionally overpowering on any stage or in any medium...

Simon Callow writing in The Guardian. 

Founded in 1974, one of Gay Sweatshop's declared aims was; ‘To make heterosexuals aware of the oppression they exercise or tolerate, and expose and end media misrepresentations of homosexuals.’

There is a history here.

Equity: The Tangled Webs We Weave

'When Antony Sher started acting with the pioneering Gay Sweatshop theatre company in the 70s, he managed to stay in the closet. "I look back and blush," he said. "We all agreed to do it on the basis that it was stated that not all the performers were gay so you didn't know who was and who wasn't.
"Then, in the mid-80s, when I did the British premiere of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy I still wasn't out. I was doing press interviews about this great gay play that I felt so strongly about for a specific reason and I wasn't saying it – it was an astonishing waste of energy. But that's the kind of tangle you get into if you're not out."

Alex Needham talks to Antony Sher in The Guardian on the start of a new campaign by Equity - I Won't Pretend - to support actors who come out. 
This has evolved out of a survey by the actors' union that suggested many are still closeted in their professional lives.
That so few leading actors are out seems far more farcical and tragic than the media obsession with gay footballers. 
The article concludes with a suitably Wildean paradox from Sher;
"When you see any great performer, you sort of see into that person's soul. Your sexuality is profoundly a part of who you are. I think it's very difficult to really reveal yourself in that exquisite way if you're trying to hide part of yourself."

Update: Sher and the boyfriend Greg Doran do How We Met in The Independent On Sunday.
Think I'll have to add Mr Sher to my little list of the weekend broadsheets' Favourite Gays.