Polari was a language used by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century, offering public camouflage and identification. Paul Baker's book tells its story with skill, humour, and tenderness, tracing its historical origins, linguistic nuts and bolts, environments, decline, and re-emergence in the twenty-first century. It is an essential document of recent history, featuring a cast of drag queens, sailors, Dilly boys, macho clones, and Fabulosa!

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 01 July 2020
Publisher: Reaktion Books

Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men

Polari is a language that was used chiefly by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century. It offered its speakers a degree of public camouflage and a means of identification. Its colourful roots are varied – from Cant to Lingua Franca to dancers slang – and in the mid-1960s it was thrust into the limelight by the characters Julian and Sandy, voiced by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, on the BBC radio show Round the Horne. (‘Oh hello Mr Horne, how bona to vada your dolly old eek!)

Paul Baker recounts the story of Polari with skill, humour and tenderness. He traces its historical origins and describes its linguistic nuts and bolts, explores the ways and the environments in which it was spoken, explains the reasons for its decline and tells of its unlikely re-emergence in the twenty-first century.

With a cast of drag queens and sailors, Dilly boys and macho clones, Fabulosa! is an essential document of recent history – a fascinating and fantastically readable account of this funny, filthy and ingenious language.

Weight: 302g
Dimension: 134 x 196 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781789142945