All in all, I prefer a limo in Manhattan to the 18-30 Club

Rosanna Greenstreet
Saturday 02 August 1997 23:02 BST
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Jonathan Harvey's passport shows that he first went abroad when he was 18 on an 18-30 Club holiday to the South of France. Jonathan shudders at the memory: "It was vile. I went with two girlfriends and I would get all horrified because men kept commenting on the size of their tits. I was being this right-on little gay man saying 'that's terrible, you shouldn't say things like that, they are human beings'. And there was lots and lots of vomiting!"

Subsequent travels abroad have been much more to his taste. A 1995 stamp for India reminds him of a fabulous trip he made with his boyfriend.

Says Jonathan: "My boyfriend had been working out in India for a couple of months, keeping people who work in the HIV field up-to-date with the latest information. After he'd had a hardgoing few months in alcohol- free states, we then spent Christmas in Goa. It was absolutely heavenly - swimming in the Arabian Sea on Christmas Day and eating seafood."

Recently Jonathan's travels have been all-expenses-paid, as he visited various countries to promote the film that was made of his award-winning play Beautiful Thing. Jonathan explains: "In October 1996 we went to the United States. We were treated like royalty - they paid for me and my boyfriend to go over and we were picked up at JFK airport in a stretch limo and driven into Manhattan. It was late at night and there was this neon-lit skyline that you recognise so well from watching television but have never actually seen in the flesh."

After a whistle-stop tour of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, Jonathan then went to Canada for the Toronto Film Festival where Beautiful Thing won yet another award. Er, maybe. "I think we won the Audience Prize at the Toronto Film Festival. I might be wrong, we might have come second," he breezes, adding: "We went to that many, I can't remember where it was that we won each award."

Jonathan also went to Australia and New Zealand to promote the film, where again it was very well received. He says: "I think the sunny nature of the film and all the bright colours appealed to the Australian sunny mentality. We certainly nicked the bright colour bits from Australian films like Muriel's Wedding!"

Jonathan Harvey's comedy monologue 'Swan Song' is at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 6-30 August

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