#The Way Old Friends Do

[markgatissbirthdayproject]

Hello!!!!! It is quite past the time to think about the Mark Gatiss birthday drive for 2023! Mark’s birthday is 17 October and I’m excited to see how much money we can raise this year! Last year we raised £515 for Switchboard LGBT+.

This will be the 8th year that we have done this!

You do not need to donate an item or purchase an item to take part. There will be a JustGiving page that you can donate to, which will be set up within the next week.

We will once again be having an auction for fan works and goods. If you'd like to donate a fic or an item please email mgbdaydrive at gmail dot com. I’m going to give people until ~the 30th of September to contact me and depending on the amount of items/fan works I may leave this open a few days after. I do hope to be hearing from more of you over the coming days! 

If you have any questions you can ask them here or at @antheas-blackberry

[merylqueenstreep]

Some amusing moments with Frida and Björn at the premiere of Mamma Mia! The Movie on June 30, 2008, in London.

[fuckyeahmarkgatiss]

The recent Times article on Mark & Ian

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mark-gatiss-and-ian-hallard-i-asked-him-to-marry-me-the-afternoon-we-met-339v55jw2

The article is behind a paywall but I still had some access so here you all are!

Mark Gatiss & Ian Hallard: ‘I proposed on the afternoon we met.’

The League of Gentleman star and his actor husband on dating at the dawn of the internet and coming out to their parents.

Mark

Ian and I met online back in 1999, long before Grindr, when online dating still had a certain stigma attached to it. “Poor you! You can’t find anyone in the real world, so you have to go scrabbling around on the internet.” I didn’t tell my family how we’d met for several years.

You also have to remember that gay men didn’t necessarily go on dates in search of eternal happiness. Dates were fun and exciting. So, when we met in the glamorous surroundings of Finsbury Park Tube station and went back to my flat, I didn’t think it was anything serious. But it was. Ian loves to tell people that I asked him to marry me that afternoon. With hindsight I think I was probably joking, but I certainly had high hopes: “Maybe he’s ‘the one’.”

Having said that, it did take a while to get used to the idea of being a couple. All my previous relationships had sort of … fizzled out. With Ian it was the opposite; we seemed to grow closer and closer. We’ve even collaborated on several projects and I’m directing his first play at the moment [the Abba-inspired The Way Old Friends Do, which Ian wrote and stars in], but there’s never been any sense of rivalry. We get asked if it’s difficult living and working together, but why would it be a problem to spend time with the person you love?

I grew up in a working-class town near Durham, my dad worked at the pit. Telling people you were gay in that situation wasn’t easy. I came out to my friends when I was 15 and there were a few comments at school, but I was never bullied. The real problem for me in the Seventies and early Eighties was that I had no idea what to do about being gay.

Apart from the occasional storyline in [the drama series] Play for Today, the only gay men on TV were John Inman and Larry Grayson. I play Larry in the new TV drama Nolly [about Noele Gordon, a star of the soap Crossroads] and understand why John and Larry were regarded as torchbearers. But some gay activists in the Seventies saw them as the enemy: screamingly gay, but at the same time a sort of neutered Saturday-night camp.

Somehow I managed to put off telling my parents to the point where my mam was the one who brought it up. I was home from university and she simply asked me. It was a huge relief. I said, “Hadn’t we better tell Dad?” Mam looked at me. “Oh no! It’ll kill him.” So we didn’t.

A couple of weeks later I was talking to Mam on the phone and she said, “I told your dad. Ooh, we had some snow overnight.” Initially I thought that had saved me from having to talk to him about it, but it had just been popped at the back of a drawer.

Dad struggled at first, but considering his background it could have been a lot worse. Although it was a bit awkward when he met Ian, we never had “issues”. Sadly we lost him in 2021. The weird thing is that as he got older he became much more tolerant. Even after he lost Mam — his loneliness seemed to soothe his prejudices. He understood that love is where it falls.

It sounds like a complete cliché to say, “We make each other laugh all the time,” but it’s absolutely true. Our shared sense of humour has become the glue that has bonded us. Ian’s definitely more together than me when it comes to admin, and I’m pretty sure he did most of the organising when we had our civil partnership in 2008. The main problem is that, left to our own devices, we can be as bad as each other. We make all these grand plans, then we decide to take Bob [the labrador] for a walk instead.

Ian and I did have a brief period of broodiness, then we quickly realised that neither of us was responsible enough, so we got a dog. The ideal scenario would be that a fully formed, well-educated, extremely polite grown-up knocks on our door and declares that they are the fruit of my overeager teenage loins. We get to be parents without the hard work!

The couple in 1999, the year they met

Ian

Remember when Stelios from easyJet started his internet cafés? Without Stelios I wouldn’t have met Mark. I didn’t have the internet at my flat in London, so I would go to a Stelios café every day to check emails and log on to gay.com. Back then online dating didn’t involve pictures; it was just messages and a phone call. When Mark and I finally clapped eyes on each other, there was that awful moment of tension, trying to decide if we fancied each other. If not, I guess we would have headed off on our separate ways.

Mark was only the second man I’d made contact with online and the first one I’d met. I did sort of recognise him because The League of Gentlemen had been on telly, but I hadn’t actually seen it. That was probably a good thing. Had I been a massive fan, I’m not sure things would have worked out.

Mark’s career has taken a different trajectory to mine. He has been involved in a lot of high-profile projects and around the time of Sherlock [Gatiss was co-creator, co-writer and appeared as Holmes’s brother, Mycroft] things did go a bit crazy. That one-sided success can cause havoc in a relationship, especially with actors — lots of arguments and jealousy. Some relationships seem to thrive on that constant drama. Not us! I’ve never seen Mark have an argument with anyone. He’s unfailingly polite to the point of diffidence.

I hit my teens when TV was full of adverts about Aids — huge icebergs, tombstones. My parents were your typical easy-going, middle-class Brummies. There was no hint of homophobia but, in that climate, you can see why they might be concerned about having a gay son. What kind of future did I have? I was either going to die of Aids or kill myself out of loneliness and depression.

When I eventually told them I’d met someone and talked about bringing him home to meet them, they were very happy. I told them he was in this fantastic programme called The League of Gentlemen and proudly told them it had won a Bafta. Unfortunately they decided to watch it. They saw this collection of psychopaths and monsters and thought, “What’s he got himself involved with? Is it a cult?” Mum rang me up and said, “Please tell me it’s not him who plays that weirdo Mickey.” I paused for a second and then said, “Yes, Mum, that’s the man I’m going to marry.”

The Way Old Friends Do, Lyceum, Sheffield, Tue-Sat; Park Theatre, London N4, Mar 15-Apr 15; and touring until Jun 10; thewayoldfriendsdo.com

Strange habits

Mark on Ian

He’s incapable of keeping his side of the bed tidy. I call his pile of dirty clothes “the Bedroom Monster”

Ian on Mark

He worries about us travelling in the same car in case something happens to us both and Bob becomes an orphan

[notfspurejam]

Mark Gatiss on The Motive and the Cue, drag, and politics - from RHLSTP 439

[antheas-blackberry]

[johannadc]

Li'l Mystrade Goes to the Theater

They've decided on a night out at a show. Birmingham is only a train ride away from London.

The show was great, about old friends reconnecting. They discuss the influence of popular culture in the bar after with a G&T (Mycroft) and cider (Greg). There's some kind of pub quiz about that ABBA band going on as well.

The Way Old Friends Do is now in Sheffield through April 15. Recommended!

[blogmillymills]

The Way Old Friends Do. Criterion Theatre London.

Written by Ian Hallard and directed by Mark Gatiss In 1988, two school friends tentatively come out to one another: one as gay, the other – more shockingly – as an ABBA fan. A comedy about devotion, desire and dancing queens. Loved it. And a new stance on Abba.

[fancy-pansy]

[gayness-and-mayhem]

I did not think that I could love James Bradshaw more than I already do, but god, I very nearly cried when he walked out on stage tonight.

[hayleysprout13]

A Week In The Life | Back In The Swing Of Things

New Post! --->

After a rough few weeks, I’m feeling ready to get back to weekly blogging again, which is a great feeling! This one will be a bit of a catch up post as well, as I have seen some great (and not so great) shows over the past few weeks amongst other cool things too. Theatre A couple of weeks ago, I did go and make my yearly visit to Les Miserables to see the new recruits. I booked instantly as…

[markgatissbirthdayproject]

Are you interested in participating in this year's drive?

[willstafford]

ABBAsolutely Fabulous

THE WAY OLD FRIENDS DO The REP, Birmingham, Thursday 23rd February 2023 It’s 2015.  When a Grindr hook-up between two middle-aged men turns out to be a surprise reunion between former schoolfriends, a chain of events is triggered that leads to the formation of a gender-swapped ABBA tribute act.  Like it does.  Ian Hallard’s wonderful script, full of barbed wit and brittle emotions beneath the…

[fuckyeahmarkgatiss]

A little The Way Old Friends Do reunion at ABBA Voyage! Pics from Ian’s Instagram.

[notfspurejam]

[antheas-blackberry]

For various reasons, I have some extra tickets to see The Way Old Friends Do on 3rd March in Birmingham. Row C. If you're interested, get in touch.

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.