Paul Bellini Archives

How do you solve a problem like Bellini?
May 11 2012 | Last month I did a Maria, from The Sound of Music, listing a few of my favourite things. Now I have even more, starting with the Daytona and Donnarama show on Sundays at Woody’s. From Donnarama’s Exorcist/Evil Dead: The Musical tribute, to Angelina Jolie’s leg, to Daytona’s i
A solid 10
May 02 2012 | Gentle readers, welcome to a very special edition of Bellini at Large. Why? Because this issue marks the 10th anniversary of my writing for fab. Ten years, four editors, two different publishers, and I’m still here. The only person who challenges my longevity is Rolyn Chambers. Since April 25,
Killer dining
Apr 21 2012 | Today, I celebrate a few of my favourite things, like chocolate, comics and weird restaurants. Weird restaurants? As a kid, my sister and I used to invent bizarre restos, like a place where they would serve plates of half-eaten food or where the waitress was an animal. Now, there actually is a pl
The specs on Spectra
Mar 30 2012 | All hail Spectra! From the solid bedrock of Queer Idol rises a new competition performance series. Which is to say that Ralph Hamelmann, the man who created and ran Queer Idol for four years, has decided to rebrand. “I wanted to get away from the whole ‘Idol’ thing because we al
F.Bellini.I.
Mar 30 2012 | J Edgar Hoover was the first director of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation and held the position from 1924 to 1972. In his 48-year reign of terror, the old motherfucker used illegal wiretapping to dig up dirt on many public figures in an effort to discredit and control them. This is undis
Staffs of life, minus one
Mar 09 2012 | Bread, wine, wigs — the building blocks of life! Luckily, not one but three new businesses have just opened that cater to these most essential of needs. Bread comes from Panera, whose newest location, just north of Yonge-Dundas Square, finally brings its high-end soups, sandwiches and salad
Labour of love & literature
Feb 27 2012 | It was announced on Feb 8 that Glad Day Bookshop, Canada’s oldest gay bookstore, is being bought by a group of 17 community members. The move has rescued the beloved shop from possible closure: current owner John Scythes had decided to either sell or close the doors forever. The new owners hav
High-strung puppets
Feb 26 2012 | Paul Bellini: Tell us about your new show, Penny Plain. Ronnie Burkett: It’s about the last three days of civilization. It is set in a rooming house run by a blind woman named Penny Plain. At the beginning, her seeing-eye dog, Jeffrey, decides to leave and spend the rest of his life as a ma
Sushi and Hotdog
Feb 09 2012 | Dina Martina has to be experienced to be believed. In honour of her rare trek to Toronto, fab turned the Sushi column over to Paul Bellini who had a lightning round of questions with Martina. Bellini: Describe your disposition. Dina Martina: Single. Who is more famous in Seattle
The Stars We Are
Jan 30 2012 | Theodore Bikel is an Oscar-nominated movie star, a folk singer and founder of the Newport Folk Festival, a Broadway superstar who has played the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof 2,100 times, and a MENSA member who speaks five languages. So what do Theodore Bikel and I have in common? Bi
Almost like being there
Jan 20 2012 | Like Chauncey Gardiner, I like to watch. I allude not to voyeurism (though who could knock it) but rather the very act of watching things — movies, theatre, TV. It’s the most fun you can have not moving. So I watch the film Not Since You. I am intrigued because it is directed by
Cocktails abound
Jan 12 2012 | I’d often wondered what it would be like to be a bartender, and the Retro Cocktail Workshop at the Cosmopolitan Hotel teaches me how. We each have a table stocked with bottles of Three Olives Vodka (root beer, bubblegum and Tang flavours) and The Kraken Black Spiced Rum. We also have all the n
Last minute gifts
Dec 20 2011 | I am pleased to announce this year’s perfect Christmas gift — a book called Frank Sinatra: The Boudoir Singer, by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince. It’s about Frank’s women, his mob connections and his dick size, but there is an even greater reason why this book should be at
What to wear for laughs
Dec 13 2011 | Recently, as Georges and I sat waiting for The Addams Family to begin, it occurred to us that we’ve seen more live shows than movie screenings this year. Probably because I keep getting invited to opening nights and can’t resist. The Addams Family was terrific fun. I loved Morticia an
An author with fangs
Nov 29 2011 | “I'm a little tired of him pretending that Pride is some folk festival with pierced nipples," grouses author Michael Rowe. He is talking, of course, about our hapless mayor, Rob Ford, and God knows the two of us could spend the entire day on the topic. But we have something more impor
Double forty
Nov 16 2011 | Russell Alldread was born on Nov 23, 1931, in Bowmanville, Ontario, but most of us know him as legendary drag queen Michelle DuBarry. Michelle is excited because her friends are planning an invitation-only dinner on Nov 22 at The 519 to celebrate her 80th birthday. We meet at the Royal York Hotel, i
Bob to the future
Nov 11 2011 | Back in 1991, Bob Smith was the first openly gay comedian to appear on The Tonight Show. He worked on MADtv and Roseanne’s sketch show and wrote three books: Openly Bob, Way to Go, Smith!, and Selfish and Perverse. In 2007, Bob was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS. “How
What happens to old bathhouses when they die?
Oct 31 2011 | On April 1, 2010, Club Toronto closed its doors with an unceremonious hand-scrawled sign that said, “Closed forever.” Many of us thought it was an April Fool’s joke. Rumours circulated that the cost of repairing the hot tub was more than the club made in revenue, so they just baile
Hard sold
Oct 13 2011 | It’s been a great year for theatre so far. In the past few months, I’ve enjoyed such Dancap Productions as 9 to 5: The Musical (starring Diana DeGarmo in the Dolly Parton part) and Next to Normal, in which Alice Ripley reprised her Tony Award–winning role. There was also the new Ci
Stranded with style
Sep 27 2011 | I am often asked: if I were stranded on a desert island, what book, CD and movie would I take with me? Would it be Jeffery Straker’s new CD, Under the Soles of My Shoes? A consummate performer, Jeffery seems to embrace all challenges. He opened for Mel C at Pride a few years ago; he’s

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