In the lead up to World Pride and Mardi Gras, it’s a welcome to the gay history of one of the gayest cities on the planet - Sydney. the gayborhood that is Kings Cross and Darlinghurst. It’s a story of pleasure, despair, sequins, sex, large bath towels and the occasional fire.

We start in the mid 20th century with the underground scene in the pubs and wine bars of Kings Cross, Paddington and the CBD. It was a scene that went public after the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969, and  hit the front pages in the first Mardi Gras in  in 1978 and decriminalisation in 1984 The rapidly emerging gay scene was dominated by characters like Roger Claude Teyssedere and his business partner Dawn O’Donnell - they ran nightclubs, pubs, saunas’ sex on premise venues, sex shops, and restaurants. Alongside them were places like the Albury Hotel, Kens Karate Club and the justifiably infamous Bottoms Up Bar at the Rex in Kings Cross.

T’was a time of spectacular nightlife, parties, theatre and intrigues but also a community forged by the devastation of the AIDS pandemic, fear prompted by the Grim Reaper campaign, appalling attacks in NSW Parliament and the cowardly crimes committed against gay men (finally the  subject of a Special Commission of Inquiry)

It was the most vivid of times running  in parallel with the darkest of times. 

 Join Brandon and Duncan to chat about this extraordinary history at a time when Sydney is in focus with World Pride -2023

PS…Dickens nailed in it a Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Tickers are $25 and includes a cocktail on arrival.