BOYS! BOYS! BOYS!

Can a film be “too gay”? Are major galleries embracing queer culture fully? And why does classical music still have such a stuffy reputation?Graeme Smith hosts a BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Breakfast Club with photographer Tyler Udall, filmmaker Joe Stephenson, Southbank Centre’s Head of Classical Music Toks Dada and BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! founder Ghislain Pascal.Tyler introduces his new book, Garden of Good, exploring the lives of performers, from ballet dancers to strippers, and the people behind their stage personas. Joe shares plans for BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Films and a dedicated queer short-film fund, alongside his experiences of being asked to make queer stories less gay.Around the table, there’s a frank discussion of Tim Walker’s Fairyland exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and the buzz surrounding Josh Silver’s Fruit Fly — from Instagram hype to turning trauma into art.Plus, Toks reveals classical music’s queer side, from Benjamin Britten to contemporary composers bringing club culture and political satire into the concert hall.Art. Queer. Culture. Over coffee.

US photographer Alex Stoddard started posting an image a day while still at school, becoming an internet sensation before moving to California and exhibiting alongside photography’s greats at Fahey Klein Gallery. We hear his extraordinary story, from surreal self-portraits to queer identity and his book INSEX.Then, live at the BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Gallery Café, British garden designer Sean A. Pritchard talks about swapping brand marketing for garden design in his thirties and following his dream. Plus, his new book Atmosfloric and new London Emporium.

Graeme Smith talks to James Longman, ABC News’ Chief International Correspondent, about what it means to tell other people’s stories while trying to understand your own.James traces the path from studying Arabic and finding queer nightlife in Beirut to reporting from Syria and investigating the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in Chechnya. He reflects on the people he has met, the things he has witnessed, and why feeling deeply about a story matters to him.The conversation also turns to James’s book, The Inherited Mind, and his search to understand his father beyond his illness and death by suicide. James speaks openly about depression, his relationship with his mother, his husband Alex, and why he believes being out has made him a better journalist.Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide, mental illness, conflict and violence.

We celebrate the best in British Queer Talent with BAFTA winning actor & writer Ryan Sampson, ground breaking music academic & drag performer Jacob Mallinson Bird, & concert pianist Cyrill Ibrahim.First up, Graeme Smith meets the very funny Ryan Sampson, known for playing Grumio in the Ancient Rome sitcom Plebs and Tommo in the comedy-drama Brassic. He also created, wrote & starred in Mr Bigstuff alongside British actor Danny Dyer, who called him “one of the best actors this country has ever produced”.Ryan discusses the fifteen years of persistence behind getting his own show made, writing for Dyer, and bringing a gay perspective to straight masculinity. He reflects on growing up in northern England, finding himself through acting, and discovering that fans have had his character permanently tattooed on their bodies.Music academic & drag performer Dr Jacob Mallinson Bird joins Alastair James to explore queer identity, music and performance. A lecturer at Oxford and Cambridge universities, Jacob talks bringing queer noise into his lectures, challenging expectations and giving students new ways to think about music, sex and self-expression.Then concert pianist Cyrill Ibrahim talks to Alastair about the expressive power of music, the barriers he has encountered in the classical world, and developing his own voice as an artist. He also shares stories of performing for the British royal family and Kim Kardashian.

This week BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Podcast is a queer fashion special.Graeme Smith is joined by the enfant terribles of the fashion world JordanLuca - Jordan Bowen & Luca Marchetto. The couple talk about their love story, the creative partnership behind the brand, getting married on the runway in Milan, and the realities of building an independent fashion label. They also speak candidly about the state of the fashion industry, and why they believe the traditional system is broken.Then Tag Warner, Chair of Gay Times, meets the new boys on the block: Average Boys. Founders Jordan Sloan & Chris Ashley explain how the brand began, the gap they saw in gay menswear, the inspiration they take from decades of queer style, and why they want Average Boys to become more than just a clothing label.

In this special episode of The BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Podcast, actors Sebastian Croft & Connor Jessup curate highlights from their first Queer Was Always Here Residency at BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Gallery Café London.British menswear designer Geordie Campbell joins i-D magazine’s Douglas Greenwood for a conversation about fashion & queerness; Marty Davies is in conversation with Drag King Don One about why & how they set up Trans+ History Week; film-makers Jomo.Wrld join Connor to discuss the relationship between film & queerness; and we have readings from poets Troy Cabida, Jaime Lock, William Rayfet Hunter, & William Wyld (all published by Fourteen Poems).Queer Was Always Here is a community dedicated to queer lives, queer art and queer history. For more information visit queerwasalwayshere.com

Ben Pentreath OBE is an English architectural and interior designer, described by Country Life as one of the best country-house architects in Britain.Recorded live at our BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Gallery Café in London, Ben joins Alistair James to discuss colour, beauty and his belief that the best homes and buildings should evolve over time.He also reflects on working closely with King Charles, his lifelong love of Scotland, and the chance discovery that led him and his husband Charlie to leave Dorset for a remarkable new life on Orkney - an experience many listeners will know from his Financial Times column.

This week’s BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! podcast looks at queer publishing through fiction, photography & independent print.Matt Cain is interviewed by Graeme Smith in front of an audience at a BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! MEETS event at our gallery in London, discussing his career, the rejection he faced from mainstream publishers, the launch of Pansy Books and his new novel, The Castle of Stories.Alistair James talks to Adrian Lourie, the photographer and publisher behind the cult gay zine MEAT, and to German author Kai Spellmeier about his debut English-language novel, Boy Friends.BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! MEETS continues again soon at our gallery in Fitzrovia, London. Upcoming guests, dates and tickets are available on boysboysboys.org.

For more than 50 years, William Yang has documented Australia's queer community through his camera, creating one of the country's most important social archives.Although his name may not be familiar to everyone, his photographs have captured generations of queer life, from the liberation movement of the 1970s, through the AIDS crisis, and into the present day. His work has become an invaluable record of queer history.As William celebrates his 80th birthday, BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! revisits his remarkable story in this exclusive chat with one of the pioneers of gay photography. Graeme Smith speaks to William about his extraordinary career, the stories behind some of his most powerful images, and why preserving LGBTQ+ history has never been more important.William features in Volume Six of BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! magazine, where we celebrate his life and work.