“Great LezBritian” is a fortnightly stroll through the very best of British lesbo-centric entertainment and culture. Plus there will be some jolly good interviews with the top ladies who are waving the flag for gay UK.
There are few things we like more than a lesbian in a tight corset swigging a glass of wine, so when we heard that The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister would open the 2010 BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, we sorted out tickets faster than you can say “Kitty Butler you broke my bleedin’ ‘eart.”
Anne Lister was a 19th century Yorkshire landowner, industrialist, traveller and, of course, gay lady who was gallous and guilt-free about her sexuality and passionate about defying the customs and rules of her time.
Her wonderful story lay bound in a four million page journal, gathering dust in an attic in Halifax until they were found by Helena Whitbread quite by chance almost a hundred years later. A great deal of Anne’s graft resembled Egyptian calligraphic sprawl but within these symbols lay rich tales of lesbian romps and romance that were thankfully deciphered by Helena, who in her own words has now “… lived with Anne Lister for 27 years.”
Helena’s work decoding these diaries provided the majority of the source material for writer Jane English’s screenplay, which is full of rich and extremely funny dialogue that Jane attributes almost completely to Anne. Commissioned by BBC2 and made by Oxford Film and Television, the film premiered on March 17 at Leicester Square. We discussed the top five UK gay ladies we hoped to sit beside and set off into the night.
On arrival, we were incandescent with joy to see hoards of girls adorning the railings outside the cinema, taking it as a sign that “‘lesbian drama” had finally mainstreamed. This was until we realised that the fervent squeals were for Robert Pattison whose new film was premiering next door.
Amid a strong lesbian contingent, we bought our popcorn (a large carton of the sweet variety if you please – how can you Americans be content to eat that salty stuff?), and took our seats amongst the newly out BBC newsreader Jane Hill (with lady friend), cast members from the internet series Far Out and most excitingly author extraordinaire Sarah Waters. She was very short and she was certainly in our top five.
We were slightly apprehensive at the thought of Maxine Peake playing Anne Lister because we’re most familiar with her wearing an apron and a hair-net as Twinkle in Dinner Ladies or being shagged with a cigarette in her mouth as Veronica in Shameless – and neither of these images are what Sapphic dreams are made of. Correct us if we’re wrong.
But any doubts dissolve within the first few minutes of the film as Peake marches across the Yorkshire Moors with a lesbian swagger that is hard to muster if not a natural component of your DNA and declares, “I love her and her heart is mine.”
She spends the next 90 minutes of the film playing this part with such intense, heart wrenching and rather arousing devotion that she turns Lister into the kind of romantic hero that would make Elizabeth Bennet weak at the knees.
Peake, a Yorkshire native like Anne, first heard of the role from a friend and was captivated by Anne’s inspirational story. She told us, “I thought Anne just sounded like my kind of part so I chased it until I got it. I hadn’t even read the script but I just knew that I had to do it!” The film is part biopic, part romance, part coming of age drama and is driven by Anne’s thick Yorkshire voice-over weaving a bold perspective on her romances, politics and a host of brilliant, gaudy supporting characters.
These include Anne’s aunt, who quizzically asks a chivalrous and handsome looking Anne as she conducts target practice, “Why must you pursue in such manly pursuits, a pistol is not becoming for a lady.” Plus the wonderful Tibbs, whose unrequited love for Anne drives her to drink and is played with brilliant comedic effect by Susan Lynch.
The film deals mainly with Lister’s passionate love affair with the beautiful Mariana, played with beautiful subtlety by Affinity’s Anna Madely. She loves Anne back and calls her “my Freddy” but cannot shed off the social constraints of the aristocratic day and refuses to live with Anne “as husband and wife,” instead marrying an older, rich male landowner.
To think that a woman in the 19th century would be brave enough to even contemplate living with her female lover like a married couple is pretty remarkable. If Lister was to take a look at society today she would no doubt be appalled to discover that women still cannot live legally as a married couple across most of the world.
Her passion for learning and determination to be self-sufficient is again admirable. When Mariana breaks her heart, instead of languishing in self-pity, she throws herself into education, learning estate management and thwarting her male nemesis by selling coal and stone from her land.
She is also an enviable seductress. We witness her embarking on the church pews with her trusty telescope, scoping out the prettiest girl in the room and quoting Byron at her until the girl can’t sleep at night: “You must stop thinking of me in bed,” she tells her.
How lovely would it be if girls still quoted Byron to each other by way of seduction instead of just plying the object of your desire with booze? A little insight for you into our first meeting……
Our only criticism of the film is that there wasn’t a more passionate build up to Anne’s relationship with shy heiress Ann Walker. However, this would have been to inject fabrication into a story bound in truth.
We would also have liked to see more of Anne’s life before Mariana, but with a four million page journal to contend with, it is understandable that this film is basically a snapshot of a particular point in Anne’s herstory. Jane English told us later that she had enough material to write several more films about Anne Lister’s life – and we said yes please. Before the screening, director James Kent said that he feels incredibly proud that Anne Lister’s story is being told on the BBC:
This is a film for men and women across the country that are completely committed to their sexuality and live lives full of romance and sex and passion. It is also for people who still struggle with their sexuality. For them, this will be more meaningful than any other drama this year. For me, as a gay director, it is a privilege to have had the opportunity to make this film with such a wonderful cast and a great writer.Anne Lister certainly left a lovely lesbian-shaped mark on our hearts that we can’t wait to have imprinted again when The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister airs on BBC2 in late spring. We will confirm the date as soon as we are allowed to!
If you cannot wait until then to watch, we recommend that you read Helena Whitbread’s book, I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840.
For more information on the BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival visit: www.bfi.org.uk/llgff.
“Great LezBritain” authors Sarah, a Londoner, and Lee, a Glaswegian, met in a gay discotheque one bleak mid winter, eight years ago and have been shacked up together ever since. When not watching Tipping The Velvet, they find time to write, run a PR company, DJ at their own club nights and love a bit of jam on toast. Follow them on Twitter at greatlezbritain.
