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For more than 150 years, 9 Lower Mall, Hammersmith, has been a home or a haven for creative homosexuals and bohemians who enriched the cultural life of the eras in which they lived.  Early habitués included the American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn and the painter Henry Scott Tuke. The secret homosexual society, the Order of Chaeronea, met there and went on to become a worldwide fraternity in the Victorian era, the first LGBTQ+ organisation. Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas visited frequently. Theatre manager George Devine moved into the house in 1953 and created the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre with George Goetschius and Tony Richardson. 9 Lower Mall became a hub for a generation of playwrights and directors.  It was where unknown playwright John Osborne speculatively slipped his script of ‘Look Back in Anger’ through the letterbox.

Clare Barlow, the curator of the Tate Britain ‘Queer British Art’ exhibition; Zorian Clayton, the Prints Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum; artist Jez Dolan; art historian Richard Cork; Professor Sue Healy; architectural historian Alan Powers; dramatist Nicholas Wright and Harriet Devine tell the story of a most queer house.

The presenter is Matt Cook, professor of the history of sexuality at Mansfield College, University of Oxford.

Post Production by Giovanni Sipiano

Produced by Roger James Elsgood and Willi Richards.

An Art and Adventure production for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 3