Saturday, June 28, 2008

More iconic Beckham Emporio Armani shots released




These shots are really making the most of Beckham's actually very slender physique.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Cranking up the Bingo

Anthony Crank fans who have not already picked up on it might like to know that he is currently hosting Bingo Night Live! on ITV after midnight - an hour of mind-numbing but oddly compelling revenue-earning televisual time filling.


Anthony seems to be sharing the job with the lovely Michael Underwood - last seen being stretchered off on Dancing On Ice.

Quite why two of television's finest slices of prime time totty are fronting this show is anyone's guess - perhaps because they both seem to be struggling to actually access prime time - but on the plus side, you do get to see lots of them looking pretty and concentrating jolly hard on calling those bingo numbers.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

DSquared2 support Bush in Milan

Model Anthony Gallo was wearing some very revealing trunks on the catwalk in Milan for the DSquared2 Summer 2009 collection.




These were the briefest pair on show but a number of designers were showing shorter men's shorts for next year - as in above the knee to mid-thigh - and some very unflattering [unless you're model-skinny] very long skinny T-shirts, which in Prada's case constituted a mandress layered over shorts. Scary.

"Brokeback meets Broadway "on America's Got Talent - the DC Cowboys Dance Company

Friday, June 20, 2008

New English Contemporary Ballet

I have a small confession - I am becoming what would probably have once been called (and probably still would be in certain circles) something of a balletomane.

Anyway, I'm going to see the New English Contemporary Ballet this week, which will be my fifth dance company this year - that's more than in the rest of my life put together.

Why has it take me so long to start going to see something I have always been interested in and now enjoy so much...?



Update: The NECB were fantastic. Highlights were the opening piece S(c)ent, set to Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and choreographed by Richard Wherlock; a brilliant short piece entitled Turret by Vanessa Fenton and a quite extraordinary piece entitled .com together, which was a whirlwind of angular but fluid ballet that somehow managed to incorporated robotic, almost bodypopping, moves and some extraordinary dancing by Jean-Michel Sinisterra Munoz, whose solos at times resembled a better, faster, ballet-trained Michael Jackson, with dramatic flurries of movement that brought vogueing to mind. Quite exhilarating.

The other highlight for me was a wonderful and very handsome dancer called Alastair Postlethwaite [pictured], who brought an incredibly manly grace to every move. Oddly, it was him on the tour poster that [pictured above] that first attracted me to the event.

If you like dance and get a chance to see this wonderful company - go!

BearForce1

Yes, the world's "first true 'bear' band" are back with a new track and video - Shake That Thing.

And yes, they're still monumentally old-fashioned, naff, amateurish and strangely unsexy [even the sexy one]. There is better bear "art" than this, surely.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Becks on the Beach (and against the wall)

One of the new images from the second phase of the David Beckham/Emporio Armani Underwear campaign, launched this week in San Francisco.



I find it hard to actually fancy Beckham but these images are hot hot hot.



The second of the five new images was revealed at the official launch, just in case you were wondering what he might look like five storeys tall - and on the front of Macy's in SF.



The new campaign was shot on Malibu beach in California by fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, and will appear on signature billboards in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Milan, Rome, Paris and Tokyo.

It will have its print debut in Vanity Fair magazine, as did the previous campaign.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Matthew Bourne discusses forthcoming Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray reimagined as a gay aftershave model for our times? Star choreographer Matthew Bourne tells The Guardian's Judith Mackrell why he couldn't resist

Having decided to bring the piece to the present day, the two men had to choose an appropriate milieu for Dorian. They finally settled on the world of arty, upscale photography. [Production Designer and long-time Bourne collaborator Lez] Brotherston's plan for the set is an ingenious revolve that can turn the production on a sixpence between loft apartment, studio, club and even the Royal Opera House. Dorian's beauty becomes immortalised through an ad campaign, rather than through a painted portrait, as in Wilde's novel. "We were trying to think how a person would become the talk of the town today, and it had to be through an image that you see everywhere. So Basil [the portrait-painter in Wilde] is going to be an iconic photographer, someone like Annie Leibovitz, and Dorian is going to become the face of a new perfume, like in a Calvin Klein ad."

Bourne and Brotherston have also been thinking hard about the characters' sexuality. Bourne feels there is an obvious gay subtext to Wilde's story that has to be made explicit, but he also believes the women Wilde portrayed are too silly to be credible for today's audience - especially Dorian's love interest, the actress Sibyl Vane. "It seems misogynistic to me," he says, "to have such weak women, and it doesn't make sense in a contemporary setting." Both issues have been dealt with by a neat gender switch. "My first revelation was to turn Lord Henry [the cynical hedonist who initiates Dorian's corruption] into a woman, probably into one of those very strong female editors in the magazine world. Then I thought of having Sibyl become Cyril, a male ballet dancer. In the novel, when Dorian falls in love with an actress, it comes from nowhere, given that he's been in this bitchy triangle with Lord Henry and Basil. It makes much more sense to have Sybil as a man."



Dorian Gray previews at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, Aug 14-16, then premieres at the Edinburgh International Festival, Aug 22-30; it tours to Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Sept 2-14; Theatre Royal Norwich, Sept 16-20; and Theatre Royal Newcastle, Sept 23-27

Dorian Gray microsite at New Adventures

Monday, June 16, 2008

Big Brother 9

I'm still not watching (other than dipping in occasionally) but it's been a while since Big Brother has featured any young fellows (let alone two) as fine to look at as Dale and Rex. Both, alas, savagely beaten with the cruel curse of heterosexuality - naturally the 'gay' on the show, Dennis (and who on earth under-forty is called Dennis) has been equally savagely beaten with the twin sticks of campness and ugliness.



Monday, June 09, 2008

Brokeback Opera

Brokeback Mountain, the story by Annie Proulx that became the basis for an Oscar-winning film, is to be made into an opera.

The New York City Opera has commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera based on the 1997 short story.

The opera is scheduled to premiere in spring [deep breath] 2013, the company said.

The 2005 film version starred the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and won three Academy Awards.

The company said Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to compose the opera, which will be his second world premiere at City Opera.

He also composed Haroun and the Sea of Stories, an adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel which opened in 2004.

"Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it," said Wuorinen, 70.

"It gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so."

Sunday, June 08, 2008

The power of the beard

So anyway, there I am, channel surfing, looking for something to watch and on BBC1 there's a Euro 2008 match about to start. England haven't even qualified so I'm about that interested, anyway, it's the National Anthem bit where the camera pans along each team and as a self-respecting gay man you have to watch in case any of them turn out to be gorgeous. So, it's Poland first, not bad looking lot actually, wish they were rugby players but whatever and then it's Germany.

Three-quarters down the line there's this tall, dark handsome player with a beard, hello, so obviously I now have to know who he is. He's a defender, 27 years-old, number 21 in the German national team and it turns out he plays for Real Madrid and his name is Christoph Metzelder and he perfectly illustrates an important point about the power of the beard...

Without beard - quite handsome, nice eyes.

With beard - come to daddy!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Fischerspooner Get Confused




Fischerspooner MySpace

Nick Youngquest shows his Mojo Downunder

Aussie rugger boy Nick Youngquest is no stranger to modelling, having already stripped off for the 2007 Naked Rugby League calendar and even done a little catwalk [runway for our American friends]. He is currently the er, face of Mojo Downunder, a men's underwear label who declare themselves "Bloody proud to be 100% Australian".




Note the scattering of rose petals on the bed indicates that this underwear is aimed at bona fide red-blooded heterosexual males, not at filthy homos. Yeah, right.



Big Brother 9 - let the insanity commence?

Big Brother 9 launched on UK television this evening.

On a lot of sites I see lots of screencaps of all the attractive people on Big Brother around the world - especially the Australian version, where tanned muscle boys seems to spend the entire show either showering or towelling off - but what do we get in the UK - a freakshow [a little unfair, I know].

The funny thing with Big Brother is you never know how people are going to turn out from their introductory films and their entrance on the big night. - flamboyant freaks turn into silent loners, nutters turn out to be genuine and interesting people, the mouthy and argumentative turn out to be shy and eager to please and the worst of the wannabe girls are usually gone in the first few weeks...

First impressions this year? Firstly, can I really face another summer watching this oddly compelling dross... Secondly, Dale Howard and Rex Newmark...