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
Drag: A British History
A fresh history of British drag performance in all its ubiquity, glamour, fun, and tawdriness.
“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.
Recent Posts
Come to My Cottage: Queer Pleasures and Female Fandom in the Silent Hollywood Era
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
Left Out: Boys, Sex, and the Challenge of “Gross Indecency” Records in Irish History