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Queer Icons – The List

Alan Carr talks about J.R Ackerley's memoir, My Father and Myself

From the poetry of Sappho to the songs of Frank Ocean, Front Row's LGBTQ guests have championed queer artworks which are special to them: all of their choices are listed below.

Hear highlights from the whole Queer Icons project, presented by Alan Carr on Tuesday 8 August at 11.30am on Radio 4.

Maggi Hambling – Some Like it Hot
Will Young – Joan Armatrading’s Everyday Boy
Christine and the Queens (Héloïse Letissier) – Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
Tarell Alvin McCraney (writer of Moonlight) – Paris is Burning
Antony Sher – Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein
Paris Lees – The Crying Game
Alan Hollinghurst – The Flower Beneath the Foot by Ronald Firbank
Alan Carr – My Father and Myself by J.R Ackerley
A.Dot – Channel Orange by Frank Ocean
Neil MacGregor – The Warren Cup
Tony Kushner – Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Stella Duffy – Carol by Patricia Highsmith
Chris Smith – Maurice by E.M. Forster

Emma Donoghue – I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing
Asifa Lahore – Dana International’s Diva
Olly Alexander (Years and Years) – Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Ben Hunte - Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing
Mary Portas – I Feel Love by Donna Summer
Rebecca Root – Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Nick Hytner – Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Rodgers and Hart
Thomas Adès – Lulu by Alban Berg
Damian Barr – Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
CN Lester – Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Colm Toibin – The Married Man by Edmund White
Juno Dawson – Big Brother TV show with Nadia
Isaac Julien – Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio
Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) – Brokeback Mountain
David Sedaris – The Boys in the Band

Queer Icons on other radio programmes

Stephen Fry (Loose Ends) – Julian and Sandy from Round the Horne
Patrick Ness (Open Book) – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennesse Williams
Val McDermid (Open Book) – Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Philip Hoare (Radio 3 Free Thinking) – Cecil Beaton’s portrait of Stephen Tennant
Peggy Reynolds (Radio 3 Free Thinking) – the poetry of Sappho
Sophie-Grace Chappell (Radio 3 Free Thinking) – Plato’s Symposium
Adam Mars Jones (Radio 3 Free Thinking) – Bruce Bagemihl’s Biological Exuberance
Jake Arnott (Radio 3 Free Thinking) – Prick Up Your Ears
Stephen Hough (Radio 3 Music) – Britten’s Serenade for Horn and Tenor

Mahan Esfahani (Radio 3 In Tune) - Bradford Tracey’s recording of Giles Farnaby’s Farmers Pavane

Alan Carr presents highlights from Front Row's Queer Icons project, with guests including Mary Portas, Olly Alexander, Christine and the Queens, Paris Lees, Maggi Hambling, Rebecca Root and the Oscar-winning writer of Moonlight, Tarell Alvin McCraney: Tuesday 8 August at 11.30am on Radio 4.

Highlights from Gay Britannia across the BBC

Christine and the Queens on Jean Genet's novel

"Gender doesn't count anymore. What matters is desire in every form"

Mary Portas on Donna Summer's I Feel Love

"When that piece of music goes on, love has no boundaries"

Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney on Paris is Burning

Moonlight writer Tarell on this ground-breaking doc about drag balls in New York

Olly Alexander on Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red

"I felt there were clues as to how this guy felt about me"

Alan Carr on J.R Ackerley's memoir

"I'm not totally comfortable being gay, whereas he absolutely loves it"