Celebrate queer history with superstar David Hoyle and Rupaul’s Drag Race UK’s Black Peppa! Enjoy market stalls, performances, film screenings, a café, a bar, a DJ, workshops, and an exhibition.

Humanists UK and Conway Hall are excited to announce the flagship event of Humanist Heritage: Doers, Dreamers, Place Makers, made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Lead Me Into Temptation, Please: LGBT Summer Fair is a hub of creativity, embracing freedom of expression beyond the oppressive tendencies of some religious contexts. The historic spaces of Conway Hall will be transformed with market stalls, performances, film screenings, a café, a bar, a DJ, and workshops, as well as an exhibition of archival materials and contemporary art. Highlights include cabaret superstar David Hoyle and Rupaul’s Drag Race UK’s Black Peppa.

Inspired by LGBT Humanists (who were founded in response to prosecution of Gay News for blasphemy in the 1970s), this fair invites us all to reflect on religiously-motivated discrimination and to express ourselves despite it. Rather than the prayer, ‘lead us not into temptation’, we say Lead Me Into Temptation, Please!

Lineup: Black Peppa, David Hoyle, Beth Watson, Carrot, Claire Mead, CN Lester, EM Parry, Housmans Bookshop, London Humanist Choir, Mahatma Khandi & the Khandi Shop, Orlando, Prinx Silver, River Manning, Rachael Field, Saintmaking: The Canonisation of Derek Jarman by Queer ‘Nuns’, SL Grange, Theophina Gabriel, Tomara Garrod, and more!

Tickets are only £3, thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund

During the day, activities include:

• Getting your own Lead Me Into Temptation, Please t-shirt at River Manning’s screen printing stall.
• Making zines, badges, and poetry in our series of creative workshops.
• Browsing the wares of our sellers, such as the Housmans radical bookshop.
• Exploring our Picturing Nonconformity: LGBT Humanist Heritage exhibition, with highlights including the ‘Vibrating Pope’ cartoons from the LGBT Humanists’ 1980s newsletters. A breadth of LGBT political history and art will be showcased, ranging from an interview with Peter Tatchell to a contemporary artist’s illustration of a seventeenth-century gender nonconforming performer who was persecuted by the Church Court.

In the evening, the Main Hall will be transformed into a performance space, featuring artists including:

• Our host for the evening, Carrot, ‘everyone’s favourite drag vegetable’.
• David Hoyle, the first English ‘saint’ to be ‘canonised’ by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence since the ceremony in 1991 for LGBT Humanists contributor Derek Jarman.
• Black Peppa, Rupaul’s Drag Race UK star, who spoke openly on the show about her struggles with homophobia in religious contexts throughout her upbringing.
• London Humanist Choir, UK’s foremost non-religious choir, who will be singing a repertoire of LGBT classics, from Queen to Elton John.
• Mahatma Khandi and the Khandi Shop, an iconic drag troupe who will be strutting their stuff to the likes of numbers from Sister Act.
• Orlando, drag performer and cultural historian from the University of Oxford, whose research-led work has been featured in major institutions like the National Gallery, Tate, and the V&A.

The title and venue of this fair are inspired by LGBT Humanists, who hosted their annual festivities at Conway Hall in the 1980s and 1990s, where their best-selling t-shirts bore the slogan ‘Lead Me Into Temptation, Please’. This inspiring organisation is celebrating its 45th anniversary in 2024! That landmark moment for LGBT heritage has summoned a team of eager cultural historians to launch a year-long initiative commemorating LGBT Humanists, produced by Humanists UK in partnership with Conway Hall, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

#LeadMeIntoTemptation