About

Royal Grammar School Guildford is delighted to invite you to an event celebrating LGBT+ History Month 2025.

Speaking at the school between 6.00pm and 8.00pm will be Dr Will Tosh and Peter Parker, both of whose recent books chart queer experiences in the respective eras they cover.

 Dr Will Tosh is the Director of Higher Education and Research at Shakespeare’s Globe, one of the foremost cultural institutions in the country, as well as Co-Director of the Shakespeare Centre London, a collaboration between the Globe and King’s College London. His most recent publication, Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare, has been praised by The Times Literary Supplement as “a well-judged feat of public scholarship” and a “challenging popular study of Shakespeare’s life”, while The Guardian has described it as a “fluent and witty book” that “magnificently” meets its objective of presenting the queer theories surrounding our nation’s greatest playwright and his work. 

Peter Parker is a prolific biographer, editor, historian and journalist whose writing has encompassed the lives of J. R. Ackerley and Christopher Isherwood. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a regular contributor of book reviews and features to numerous newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. Parker’s latest work, Some Men in London: Queer Life, is a two-volume anthology capturing the evolution in attitudes towards homosexuality in post-war Britain, a decades-long social change that culminated in the partial decriminalisation of homosexual acts in 1967. The books have been described by The Financial Times as “a meticulous portrait of prejudice and the gradual shifting of public opinion”, while writing in The Spectator, Matthew Parris has lauded Parker’s efforts as “a work of genius”. Dominic Sandbrook, co-host of the popular podcast series The Rest Is History, has similarly commended the “absolutely extraordinary” nature of Parker’s research and has bestowed the anthology with the award of The Times and Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2024.

Both speakers will deliver short lectures discussing their books and following an intermission, will respond to questions posed by a panel of our Lower Sixth English Literature and History students.

Tickets are free and we look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible. The age recommendation for this event is students in the Fourth Form to the Upper Sixth. All members of the school community with a particular interest in English literature, History and social issues pertaining to LGBT+ activism and rights are encouraged to attend.

Location

RGS Guildford, High Street, Guildford, Surrey GU1 3BB

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