Beautiful Thing, by British writer Jonathan Harvey, remains one of the best-loved gay love stories to emerge from the 1990s.
When it first premiered at the relatively small Bush Theatre in London in 1993, it proved a sensation. Theatrical gay characters before this were often coded or sidelined.
When they did take center stage, the angst-ridden protagonists often led secret, depressing lives.Sure, The Boys In The Band may have been groundbreaking for its time, but who would want to be a guest at that particular party?
The arrival of AIDS in the 1980s did nothing to lighten the mood.Romances, reservations, and more juicy behind-the-scenes details you might not know about ‘The Boys In The Band.’By contrast, Beautiful Thing focuses on two working-class teenage boys on a south London council estate who tentatively fall in love during a summer heatwave.