The View From Here

As LGBTQ+ history month begins, we are thrilled to share the final episodes of our first season.

We sit down with Peter for the first of two episodes. Starting in 1960s Melbourne and the impossible choice between prison and the Vietnam war, which ultimately saw him move to London. On his second day in the UK he discovered the Gay Liberation Front, a movement that aimed to achieve cultural change, challenging the church, media, polic...

We sit with Nettie Pollard as she relives the early 1970s Gay Liberation Front, a movement that built a culture of collective courage, mutual care, and playful defiance. From secret ‘zaps’ at the Festival of Light to linking arms outside the Albert Hall, she reveals how the GLF protected one another, challenged the police, and made joy a tactic.

Nettie takes us inside the Counter‑Psychiatry Group working to overcome the label of hom...

When Lord Chris Smith stood in a crowded hall in Rugby and said, “My name is Chris Smith... and I’m gay,” British politics took a giant leap forward. In this episode, we trace the path from coming out to the Blair-era equality reforms that reshaped life for LGBTQ people in the UK.

Chris discusses tabloid hostility, the response of his constituents, and the small moments that mark a cultural shift. He walks us through some ...

We sit down with Stuart Feather, Paul Shaw, and Lavinia Co‑op to trace the raw and often outrageous path from the Gay Liberation Front’s early meetings at the LSE to the Bloolips’ radical drag that rattled London, conquered Amsterdam, and charmed New York.

We revisit the infamous Festival of Light action at Methodist Central Hall, featuring slow handclaps, boxed mice under pews, can‑canning “nuns,” a balcony banner crownin...

Following our main interview with Adèle Anderson, recorded before the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling on trans rights in the UK, we sit down with Adèle for a live recording at The View From Here's launch event in London.

Adèle shares her thoughts on the negative progress we're seeing in trans rights in the UK, the impact of culture wars and the chilling effect this is having.

If you enjoyed this episode, please co...

Adèle Anderson, a key voice of cabaret group, Fascinating Aida, takes us behind the spotlight to Britain in the 1970s, where a radical queen went on to face aversion therapy and a medical playbook that demanded a “ladylike” life before providing basic care. 

We explore how a newspaper headline threatened to push Adèle out of Fascinating Aida, GLF fractures, the politics of trans inclusion, and the echoes of the past in today's ...

We sit down with the activist and actor, Jill Nalder, whose real life shaped the TV series It’s a Sin, to uncover how a makeshift home in London became a blueprint for chosen family, mutual aid, and relentless care during the HIV crisis. From youth theatre in Wales to drama school in the city, Jill shows how safe spaces grow courage and how that courage fuelled nights of laughter, emergency phone calls, and the kind of honesty that...

Ted Brown, veteran of the Gay Liberation Front and a driving force behind black gay activism in Britain, joins us to trace a path from a civil rights–inspired childhood to organising the first UK Pride, and to a battle many don’t see coming - staying out and safe in elderly care.

We start with Ted’s mother, a Jamaican activist who stood with the US civil rights movement and taught him to read prejudice as a system, not a p...

Lisa Power joins us to chart a raw, funny, and fiercely practical road through UK LGBTQ+ history—from Switchboard’s midnight calls to the birth of Stonewall, from Section 28’s chilling effect to the sudden light of Vancouver 1996 when HIV combination therapy changed everything.

We dig into the messy reality of coalition building: why Stonewall chose equality as the shared baseline, how the age of consent fight was won in s...

A boy from Limehouse learns to disappear to survive. Decades later, he chooses the opposite—and everything changes. Michael Cashman joins us for a vivid, unflinching journey from dockside childhood to EastEnders fame, from the terror and tenderness of the AIDS years to the kitchen-table founding of Stonewall. He shares how art, politics and everyday compassion forged a life of showing up when silence was safer.

Michael dis...

The View From Here is a UK-based podcast shining a fresh light on LGBTQ+ history through long-form interviews with some of the UK's leading changemakers. Our aim is to keep these stories alive and inspire the activists of tomorrow.

This trailer introduces the podcast. Season one will begin on 26 November 2025 with weekly episodes.

This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander

Editing by Hannah Stewart

Music...