Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret through the AIDS Crisis, for fans of IT'S A SIN

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When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends - of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own - she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get. The book grinds on though, and it’s a hard read at points, the speed and ruthlessness of beautiful men dying is hard to take, if (fictional character from It’s A Sin) Derek’s death made you cry, be prepared to share the grief still felt by Jill for the deaths of so many others. Love from the Pink Palace is just that, a huge throb of love, from a woman who continues to give and share (although she doesn’t mention it here, her charities have raised more than a million pounds for HIV research and support). Her love teaches us that unconditional love will get us through the darkest of times and give us an opportunity to build on the ashes of the glories of those who went before. Her tireless campaigning for Aids awareness and research is the heart of her friend Davies’s It’s A Sin (she has a cameo as the mother of the character inspired by her). In this livestreamed event, Nalder and Davies will be in conversation about both the memoir and the TV show, shining a light on the boys who were stigmatised and shamed, and remembering those who were lost too soon.

Love From the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder BOOK REVIEW: Love From the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder

Jill met the crisis head on . . . She held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going’ RUSSELL T DAVIES But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the ‘gay flu’, and Jill and her friends – spirited Juan Pablo, Jae with his beautiful voice, upbeat Dursley, and many others – found that their formerly carefree existence now under threat. It is Henry who disappears first, as a mysterious new illness arrives, hitting a now-familiar wall of fear, denial and misinformation. The disappearances keep coming. Friends from the scene “go home” to their families and never return, lost to what relatives might decide to call cancer. In March 2020, the former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe wrote a column for the Daily Express suggesting that Aids was one of a number of frightening epidemics that had not “proved as devastating as feared”. Though this series finished filming before the current pandemic, it stands as a riposte to such an abhorrent idea. The sheer waste of lives is devastating. This book will make you cry and as Jill took the time to educate the reader about the wonderful people who were Colin, Derek, Juan and Dursley - and the many, many others who lost their lives, I knew if I allowed it, I would just become a bawling mess. This book is an absolute eye opener about a time that people are still affected and traumatised by, and while we know now that a HIV diagnosis isn't the death sentence it once was, we still have a long way to go before we overcome the stigma and fear that still rings around such a diagnosis. To those lost to the killer we call AIDS, the world of PrEP, treatment and people on medication who ‘can’t pass it on’ is alien. I cannot help but ask if we are doing enough to honour their legacy and sacrifice?When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends – of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own – she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs could get.

Review: Love From the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder | Terrence

In particular, one of Jill’s fallen friends tried everything to survive until they were drugs available to control the HIV virus – they very sadly did not but did inspire others to fight on. Some of those are still with us today. That friend made it to 7 August 1995, painfully close to life-saving triple-drug therapy that would arrive less than 12 months later. It was not just Phantom of the Opera that was robbed of such talent. We all were. Time and again.

Despite the darkness and despair of parts of the book, Nalder skillfully combines snippets of humour, loads of love and joy and a deep humanity that , despite my tears, kept me reading on.