Queertet returns

Queertet, an evening of LGBT-themed short plays that kicks off the week of Liverpool Pride, returns to the city at the end of this month. The showcase, the brainchild of Grin Productions, features new work by up and coming writers, and this year is compered by Eddie Fortune, who previously scared the living daylights out of audiences in the company's Tongues earlier in the year. In the line up is Two's Up, Patrick Maguire's follow-up to one of last year's scene-stealers, Madame Reprobate, which told the story of a straight-laced student and his outrageous mother. This time, we're also promised a hunky plumber... Honey, Get Over It! is intriguingly described as a very rude cross between Ghost and Drop Dead Fred and About the Boy is a "sweet and frothy love story about lesbian cross dressing and the odd moustache". Finally, WLTM is Grin's first musical, set in a New York coffee shop and described, we're promised, as, "very Glee". Kiefer Williams, the artistic director of Grin says: "Queertet is something we love, it is our passion to develop new talent and new writing and after last year we decided we wanted to make it an annual thing. I don't think there's been anything like it before in the city - we felt there was a gap to do something like this. It gives the Pride programme a boost and it gives us a boost, and we're really pleased with it." Warning of the adult content of the show, he continues: "Queertet has something for everybody. We made sure it's really varied and has work that is topical, controversial and as usual it's not for the faint-hearted. People expect Grin to push the boat out and do something a little bit different." They are particularly proud that 2012's Queertet was shortlisted as one of the year's best events by Seen magazine. It is part of an increasingly busy calendar for Grin, who produce individual shows, evenings of monologues, run a new writers' group and founded the city's Play in a Day. But first of all, catch Queertet at the Lantern Theatre from July 25 to 27.