House of Boys

1984. Frank is an English teenager who walks out of school and runs to Amsterdam. He finds work at a bar called the House of Boys, which is also a brothel run by a strict Madame. Frank starts behind the bar and works his way onto the stage. He falls in love with Jake, one of the boys in the house. Then a name starts going round for something people are calling the gay cancer. Nobody knows what it is, nobody talks about it, and it comes into this small group. Jean-Claude Schlim directs; two hours. Layke Anderson plays Frank and Benn Northover plays Jake, with Udo Kier as the Madame and Stephen Fry as the doctor. A Luxembourg production. What it is about is the first years of the epidemic: people disappearing one by one while the thing has no name.