Bronski Beat

It was in Stratford-on-Avon, and he was a few years younger than me, and he became very good friends with my brother, um, who's now a filmmaker.

And, um, Richard brought Jimmy, 'cause he joined the tail end of Bronski Beat, and he brought Jimmy along to a miners' benefit that I was doing.

'Cause we in The Happy End, it was a 25-piece big band, that's who I was with at the time that Jimmy was in the Bronski Beat.

Um, we had, uh, collaborated with Kay Sutcliffe, who was the Kent miner's wife, who wrote Coal Not Dole, the lyrics, and we recorded it, and it became the anthem of the strike.

And Jimmy, at that point, his best friend was Mark, who was, um, he was basically the person that they've made Pride the film about, and now the National Theater, um-

Yeah.

I th- Do you know, uh, uh, has Bronski Beat, "Beat boy, beat boy, hit that perfect beat." Do you remember that?

Yeah.

[laughs]

Yes.

Another Scottish icon who turns up in this film is Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat, who plays an angel.

He appears at the beginning singing, Eliza is the fairest queen, and at the end singing,

coming.

It, it is just crazy.

Yeah, well, the thing was is back then you didn't write about someone's sexuality unless they made a real point of it, like Bronski Beat did, because they were out, and they were singing about being out, and they were putting pink triangles on their record covers.

Or you, n- like, just then, the concept of outing started, and that was really to drag some gay person who was pre- who was a Republican, like, uh, someone who was trying to bash us politically.

Uh, you, you did that to expose them.

And I stumbled upon like a four minute long video.

That's like the music, you know? And so he's from Bronski beat.

He's from the, yeah.

The band Bronski beat, which our mother would know.

Yes.

And I know which, yeah, it's like they, you know, had their one hit like back in the 80s, but are also like very known throughout like the queer UK dance scene and like have had their moment.

It's got to sound like 80s Pet Shop Boys.

There's a band I love called Bronski Beat.

They have a song called Small Town Boy, which is very identifiable with the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

The song is about the AIDS epidemic in a way.

It's an amazing song.

Everybody should listen to Small Town Boy by Bronski Beat.

And I fell in love with their album from the 80s called Age of Consent.

And Halfway through season two, I was like, I want you to listen to this.

Sometimes I ask myself why.

Here's Bronski Beat for you.

Never give in Tell me why Fighting for our love You and me together Fighting for our love

Tell me why, that was the track, yes, and it was there for you this evening, so tell why.

I think I wanted to hit that specifically also because I, okay, so a little story time.

About a month ago, I went to this live concert that was based off of Bronski Beats, the Age of Consent album.

Amazing.

Wow.

[laughs]

Uh, Br- Steve Bronski out of Bronski Beat.

Was he there?

Yeah, he was there.

This is when he was the singer with which group?

Bronski Beat.

[bell dinging] Three points for Bronski Beat.

And it's four points for this next one.

The 1990 single, There She Goes, was the only top 40 appearance for which band?