52 GSCENE Trupin and Carlton Wilborn. The documentary unapologetically celebrated the open sexuality of its dancers, six of whom were gay, their orientation as much of a centerpiece as Madonna herself. I saw them laugh, cry, camp it up, smoke, bitch, wear lycra shorts and torn fishnet sweaters - in the street! They were not always kind, and the section where three of them rounded on Oliver Crumes (the only straight guy) is still, 25 years later an uncomfortable but fascinating twist on the bullied gay kid. Gay people get to pick on the straight guy, what confusing juxtaposition is this?
CRAIG’S THOUGHTS 25 Years of Truth (or Dare to be Different) by Craig Hanlon-Smith @craigscontinuum ) Growing up gay in a small provincial part of England could at times be an isolating experience. Even when moving to London in 1990 it would take some time before I had the confidence to have an honest conversation with myself, let alone seek out the company of other gay people. After all, I’d spent the latter half of the 1980s reliably informed through every form of social contact and national media outlet that gay people were either paedophiles, disease carriers or probably both. I had been to London twice before, once to attend a fear-inducing interview for university, terrifying because the university lecturer interviewing me was clearly a homosexual comfortable with his lot. Imagine. His office was adorned with theatre posters celebrating the artistic achievements of socially dysfunctional sexual deviants who were yet to become my heroes, Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton to name two. My interviewer caught me staring at the naked thighs and confusingly attractive bulge of Mr Orton and proceeded to tell me that Orton’s life had been cut horribly short when his gay lover came home and bludgeoned him to death in a jealous rage; it was all the evidence I needed to ascertain that my local community at home had been right all along, live life like a homo and before long there will be an axe in your skull dividing your brain in half. Above his desk sat another poster, which read AIDS – ACT UP, and another which listed all the positives attributes gay people brought to the world. I tried not to notice the enamel pink triangle pinned to his lapel as my eyes darted hurriedly around the office assessing my escape route. Little me from the deepest pocket of North West England trapped in a room with a diseased paedophile. And yet I had the strangest feeling of wonder, like Lucy feeling her way through the musty fur coats in that magical wardrobe to discover a fantastical world of snow underfoot and Turkish Delight beyond. My second London visit would be the summer before my eventual permanent move, travelling
250 miles to Wembley Stadium to see Madonna. I took the bus from Blackburn, through the night, on my own. I hadn’t dared ask anyone to come with me as buying a ticket to a Madonna show was tantamount to painting an arrow in rainbow stripes and waving it in the general direction of one’s backside whilst yelling “this way”. The memory of that show is now a blur, although I remember being transfixed for much of it by of course my five metre proximity to Madonna. That is until the end. During the showstopping Vogue, I became aware of both the flamboyance and eroticism of the male dancers. As transfixed as I had been with Joe Orton’s manspread, I was both aghast and mesmerised by the figure hugging lycra and consequent array of shapely bottoms and bulges only a matter of feet above my head. But there was something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on (I was five metres away remember) amidst their bumps, grinds, and expertly choreographed striking of poses; a flamboyant camp confidence of masculinity, a contradiction of pigeonholes I had neither the language nor understanding for as an 18-year-old hick.
The most groundbreaking segments though for me, stuffed into my 19-year-old cell of repression, were instrumental in unlocking even the beginnings of an idea that I might be able to escape from the role I was already exhausted in portraying. To find comfort with the truth, to stand up for myself, to make friends with people who would understand, to love and to be loved by another man, without shame. During the tour’s visit to New York the dancers attended a Gay Pride march through the centre of a city, in the street. In 1991 I had no idea this was even a possibility, celebrating being gay, dressing and behaving flamboyantly outside. And then there was the kiss; during a game of Truth or Dare, Salim Gauwloos and Gabriel Trupin locked lips on screen and for 30 seconds the world stopped. As an ecstatic Madonna looked on and proclaimed “I’m getting a hard on”, I wanted to leap up and shout “you’re not the only one”.
Twenty-five years on the dancers have taken part in a ‘catch-up’ documentary charting their lives now, entitled Strike a Pose. The film has played at international festivals but has yet to receive a wider release and as yet I’m still to see it. I gather from reviews and interviews with the guys that there was much more to the troupe than the truth or dare portrayed through In Bed With Madonna. Three were hiding an HIV diagnosis, Gabriel Trupin has since died and there was a legal tangle with Madonna over certain scenes in the film and how the dancers were salaried, eventually settled out of court. But deep in the belly of my confused youth, I A year later, and nine months into my London saw that film twice a week, every week for two residency, I skipped to the cinema (again, alone) months as it topped the summer box office the to watch the behind the scenes tour documentary world over. There was of course at that time no In Bed With Madonna (Truth or Dare in the US), social media, no internet and very little in the a film charting the Blonde Ambition tour I had way of gay characters in film or television that attended on its UK leg the preceding summer. were not merely figures of fun. Luis Camacho, Wrapped around the shenanigans of the Oliver Crumes, Salim Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez, superstar centre piece, I was introduced to the Kevin Stea, Gabriel Trupin and Carlton Wilborn dancers that had intrigued me from afar at gave me the hope to hang on. Life was waiting, Wembley; Luis Camacho, Oliver Crumes, Salim right around the corner, and in many ways, they Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez, Kevin Stea, Gabriel saved mine.
“I was both aghast and mesmerised by the figure hugging lycra and consequent array of shapely bottoms and bulges only a matter of feet above my head”