A special chat at last year's Homotopia Festival 2021, outside Liverpool's iconic Metropolitan cathedral with award winning transgender performance poet, speaker and educator Jay Hulme. Listen to Jay chat to our festival director, Char Binns, about his love of poetry, exploring churches and the relationship between religion and sexuality.

Content warning: This episode contains mentions of fire, death and features strong, suggestive and sexual language and mentions of violence/murder so please listen with caution. Our last Pearl Necklace offers up a Candle Wax Erotica, the Confessions of a Night Club Janitor and a charming bouquet of auditory ephemera. So, lean back, darling, pour yourself a tall glass of Shloer and warm your bunion by the fire as you settle down for one last chapter in this torrid little affair...

Content Warning: mentions of violence, sex and liberace. This weeks installment features an Ode to Celery, the Cranberries and the 'Crack of Dawn' - an elderly woman's vigilante war against crime

Content Warning: features strong, suggestive and sexual language and mention of violence/murder. This week’s episode features an epicurean dung diary, some doggy dating profiles and a local cab driver’s new hobby! Fasten your seatbelts, girls it’s going to be a blumpy ride!

A new audio series for Homotopia Festival 2021 Pearl Necklace is a 6 part Round the Horne inspired absurdist queer sketch revue for the TikTok generation, celebrating the ingenuity (and ignorance!) of the LGBTIQA community past, present and future, recorded and broadcast in Liverpool as part of Homotopia Festival 21’ in partnership with DISTRICT & FRIGHTWIG. 
In this week's Pearl Necklace we encounter a local Queer Community Radio station repeatedly interrupted by Bad News Farm, panel organisers desperately seeking diversity and the recollections of an ageing hollywood actress. Content Warning: informal mention of suicide, sex and violence. reference to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism. Sound editing and production by Luke Thomas(lukethomasmusic.com)

Written and narrated by Jade Anouka and Grace Savage. Getting ready to become parents is a daunting task. Add in that both parents are the same sex, and it becomes a whole lot more complicated. When Jade and Grace decided to have a baby together, they trawled the internet for resources on queer parenting. Despite having a world of information at the swipe of a thumb and decades of LGBTQIA parents who have pioneered the way, relatable information was seriously lacking. In this short audio narrative commissioned by Homotopia, Jade and Grace reflect on their journey so far, their hopes for future queer parents and all that they still have to learn.

Introduced and guided by Roger Hill, we tour two sites on Homotopia’s Art Crawl with guest Rebecca Clark from Mooncup Theatre Between by Soph Welton on the front window of The Bagelry, Nelson Street birds of a feather flock together, aka: A New Family Portrait by OyH on the Baltic Creative building, Jamaica Street Images from the series To Be Frank by Michael Parry at the Digital Exhibition Window at Open Eye Gallery, Mann Island.

Introduced and guided by Roger Hill, we tour three sites on Homotopia’s Art Crawl with a guest Lesha Palmer Black People Built Liverpool by Kiara Mohamed, inside the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. ‘Multitransitional’ by Colin Lievens on the poster hoarding at Great George Street. Audio Produced by Laura Brown Series produced by Alex Ferguson on behalf of Homotopia With support from BBC Radio Merseyside Visit Homotopia dot net for more info

Award-winning playwright Marjorie H Morgan will give us an intersectional approach to the Albert Docks area – anchored to the city, to family, to self. Unity Theatre Co-commission. Written and performed by Marjorie H Morgan Audio Produced by Laura Brown Series produced by Alex Ferguson on behalf of Homotopia A Unity Theatre Co-Commission With support from BBC Radio Merseyside Visit Homotopia dot net for more info

Roger Hill explores the notion of queering the city? What is urban planning, how does it shape where and how we live? Who makes the decisions and where do they come from? How does your race and your gender influence urban design? Gender mainstreaming makes us consider gender in building and planning, how do we consider race and sexuality, age? Combining a personal and reflective history of Liverpool, with an interview with a city planner, perhaps. Helping to create a sense of perspective and understanding to tell audiences what the series will be about and what the terms will mean. Audio Produced by Laura Brown Series produced by Alex Ferguson on behalf of Homotopia With support from BBC Radio Merseyside Visit Homotopia.net for more info