LGBT Book, Film & Video Blog

MATT Zemeres lovingly calls his mum "one of those over-enthusiastic mothers". She has flown down from her Brisbane home to see him five times in the play Holding the Man since its Sydney premiere in 2006. And she saw it four times in its recent Brisbane season.

"Each time she came she brought a stack of friends and family," says Zemeres. "She drags her poor partner along too, Dennis. He's this stereotypical Aussie male, a really straight-up-and-down bloke, but he loves the play, and cries in it. So I think that's a good sign, when someone like Den can sit through the show nine times."

First and foremost, Holding the Man is a love story. Playwright Tommy Murphy, who wrote the play from the book of the same name by Timothy Conigrave, calls it "one of our greatest love stories in literature, full stop".

Holding the Man began as a memoir by the Melbourne-born Conigrave about falling in love as a teenager with Xavier College schoolmate — and captain of the school football team — John Caleo, and their subsequent 15-year relationship. The union ended tragically at the height of the AIDS epidemic, with both men succumbing to the disease. Caleo died first and Conigrave less than two years later in 1994, just months before Holding the Man was published.

The book went on to win the 1995 United Nations Human Rights Award for non-fiction, was published in several languages and became a beloved tome among the gay community.

See  A tragic love story transcendent beyond sexuality
The Age