‘There’s nowt so queer as folk’, as my gran used to say. And she wasn’t wrong, god bless her. Not that she’d have approached this flagrantly controversial and quintessentially gratuitous sex-romp with the same candour. I dare say she would spent the greater part of the series in the kitchen stirring a cup of tea and cracking faintly nervous jokes to the dog. But I digress.
Whilst the UK version of the mini-series emphasised the gritty, realistic and necessarily furtive dimension of the show, the US version has pulled on a pair of its favourite fluffy, pink bedroom slippers and yanked it squarely within the remit of every other glossy gay sex-comedy made for the networks: homosexuality is fun, homosexuality is steamy, homosexuality is cooperating in needlessly complex and hilarious comic burlesques with a partner of – and sometimes not – your choice.
The consensus seems to be that the Season 1 CD was brilliant and that the Season 2 CD out of date by the time it was released. The Season 3 release, on the other hand is actually the kind of gently alternative compilation I would have crafted myself had I been Queen for a day. In place of the halcyon club trax that characterized Music From The First Series is a veritable trove of indie diversity: The Reindeer Section, Goldfrapp, Eels, Ima Robot, Suede, Burnside Project, TV On The Radio, The Uncut, Kodo, Origene and many many more (well four to be exact).
And the verdict? Almost as beautiful and as queer as all those heavenly creatures in it