Bad Gays

Oct 30 2024 92 ep. 57 mins 5.7k
Bad Gays Podcast artwork

A podcast about evil and complicated queers in history. Why do we remember our heroes better than our villains? Hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. Learn more: www.badgayspod.com

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Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie (with Indigo Dunphy-Smith)

Oct 30 2024 67 mins  
Today's special guest is the researcher and museum worker Indigo Dunphy-Smith, who is bringing her expertise to the case of Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, two Edinburghian school teachers who found themselves embroiled in a sex scandal and court case in the early years of the 19th century. Their legal woes followed accusations by a pupil about sapphic goings-on at their small priva

Extra Bad Gays October 2024: Meet Your New Gaggony Guncles

Oct 28 2024 10 mins  
Say hello to your new agony uncles: or is that Gaggony Guncles? A gay guy wonders if he's having enough sex! People ask about moving to Berlin. A freshly out transmasc wonders: am I becoming an evil twink? For the full story, subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS directly in Apple Podcasts or on Patreon.

Jerome Robbins (with Liz Rosenfeld)

Aug 25 2024 64 mins  
Today, special guest Liz Rosenfeld discusses the choreographer Jerome Robbins. Born in New York to Jewish immigrants, Robbins pursued dance and radical politics––until, under the threat of being blacklisted and exposed for his sexuality, reporting on his former comrades to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. As one of Broadway's star choreographers, he helped define B

Extra Bad Gays June 2024: Pride From Stonewall to Subaru (Trailer)

Jul 03 2024 20 mins  
Starting with a reading from Martin Duberman's book Stonewall about the riots that kicked off a revolution, we reflect on the history of increasing corporate involvement in Pride, some unreasonably horny Subaru ads, a Raytheon Pride slogan from this year that made both of us momentarily speechless, and the politics and ethics of engaging with corporate pride in a moment of backlash

Christopher Marlowe (with Will Tosh)

Jun 25 2024 76 mins  
Today's special guest is Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe, London, and the author of a new book, “Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare.” Having answered the obvious question in the prologue, the book becomes a sort of emotional biography of Shakespeare’s private life, but uses that his life and his work to ask broader questions about

Rotha Lintorn-Orman

Apr 25 2024 51 mins  
We close out our season with the story of a dashing tomboy who was the first woman to found a British political party. The only problem: that party was the British Fascists. Subscribe to EXTRA BAD GAYS, our monthly conversation about queer life, culture, and politics. ----more---- SOURCES: Colin Cross, The Fascists in Britain (London: Saint Martin's Press, 1963) Julie Gottlieb, Fe

TRAILER: Extra Bad Gays April 2024 - Tory Sex Scandals and Capote's Feud

Apr 22 2024 16 mins  
Enjoy a sneak preview of EXTRA BAD GAYS, our monthly, subscriber-only show on contemporary queer politics and culture. For the full episode and a new episode every month, click 'subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or join our Patreon by clicking here.

Baron Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás

Apr 18 2024 41 mins  
Today’s subject had a multi-hyphenate name and a multi-hyphenate resume––, in his 55 years of life, he was an adventurer, a geologist, a spy, a dinosaur scientist, one of the founders of paleobiology, the world’s first airplane hijacker, a founder of the field of Albanian studies, a cosplay artist, and a murderer. Born in 1877 in Transylvania, the Baron Franz Nopcsa von Fel

Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah

Apr 09 2024 48 mins  
"If you have to take an beautiful enslaved convert boy from another province to become your lover, and then you fall hopelessly in love with him, and then promote him and he attains great power, do be aware than he might actually want to take your throne." Somehow, this extremely specific lesson was forgotten by two generations of rulers. Join us in a trip back to the court of 1300

Marthe Hanau

Apr 01 2024 44 mins  
Marthe Hanau built a several-hundred-million-franc financial powerhouse: which turned out to be a fraud. Her investors had been promised returns of 8% interest on savings and in investments forty percent a year —but by the time she died in prison, they were owed a hundred and fifty five million francs. Some people even credit her spectacular swindle to the political confluence th