Bolts was one of the most vibrant LGBTQ nightclubs in 1980s London, renowned for its Hi-NRG music and its weekly shows that were at the vanguard of gay culture.
United Kingdom
Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7
Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 looks back at one of the most shocking miscarriages of justice in recent British LGBTQ+ history
“Would You Let Yourself In?” Reflections on Marc Vaultier’s Mirror
The often-repeated, shady story of how Marc Vaultier turned away people from Taboo’s door turns out to be apocryphal.
The Two Faces of Taboo
Marc Vaultier was the gender-bender doorman who played a central role in the success of Leigh Bowery’s infamous nightclub Taboo
Contextualising Taboo: Leigh Bowery and the Media
Leigh Bowery’s nightclub Taboo is mythologised as London’s most decadent nightclub of the 1980s.
Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: The Biography of Patrick Nelson, 1916-1963
Patrick Nelson: queer black Jamaican man, queer black migrant in interwar London, WWII serviceman, POW and witness to Jamaican histories of colonialism and decolonization.
“Beyond the Law”: The Politics Ending the Death Penalty for Sodomy in Britain
Beyond the Law focuses on the multiple ways various groups of individuals in the early nineteenth century understood what sodomy was, and what constituted an ethical response to it.
Recent Posts
A Love Letter to Bolts Nightclub
Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7
The Massage Establishments Scandal: Coding and De-coding Sex Work at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Two More Weeks: The Brutality Behind Brazil’s Reproductive Politics
“Dolled up to the nines to go to a flippin’ public toilet!”: Cruising in Belfast During the Troubles