AK Soufflé: Variety is the spice of Soufflé

I’ve been thinking very hard about my TV chat show over the last few weeks. Thoughts provoked by my choice of guests. You see the show is part of our LGBT+ thread, programmes aimed at the gay community and, for the most part my guests have been representatives of that community. I am sure that I will continue in a similar vein, bringing people to the show who play an important part in gay life, but I have already started to invite guests onto the show who are not gay and one or two people have asked me why.

Well my answer is simple and I hope that it will make sense. My life is simply not defined by my sexuality. I feel pretty confident that I am not alone in this. Lots of my friends who are gay are not defined by their sexuality either. Nor are all of my friends chosen because of their sexuality either. I have male and female friends who are gay of course but I have plenty who are heterosexual and some who I am sure are asexual. I love and like them all equally because those definitions are their own business, and not mine. In crude terms what they do in private and in bed, or not in bed for that matter, is their choice and has no influence on my relationship with them.

In the same way I am convinced that most people are interested in a wide range of things that are not defined by their sexual preferences. I have straight male friends who love musical theatre and gay friends who are crazy about rugby and football.

My life is simply not defined by my sexuality

I had a chat with the boss about this a few weeks ago. I had the opportunity to invite a few very well known guests onto my show to talk about their work, Carol Harrison was coming in to talk about The Small Faces and her play All Or Nothing and two weeks later Jodie Prenger came in to talk about her career and her new role in Shirley Valentine, a play that did not require her to unleash that fabulous voice.

Latest Bill and I agreed that the Soufflé was a richer dish if I opened the oven and popped in a wide, non-sexual-preference defined list of guest ingredients and so far it seems to be working. I also notice from the messages that I receive in person and through social media that many of my viewers are not from the LGBT+ community, I mean my mum, clearly not gay (but very gay friendly indeed) is a regular online viewer and so are my family back up north. Okay yes, they are family, but I am sure that they would not tune in again and again if they did not like it.

So watch this space and watch the show, there will still be my gay guests, my trans friends and political friends too and we will still be talking about topics that directly affect the LGBT+ world but there is going to be more, so much more.