Review of John Barrowman’s “Anything Goes”

Barrowman age 7

He gives a more acute and moving account of his growth towards political consciousness in a chapter right towards the end of the book. The spur was apparently the experience of starring as Bobby in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company in 2002. During rehearsals, Barrowman asked Sondheim if Bobby was gay, to which Sondheim ironically enough replied, “Definitely not.” (As someone who’s seen the musical Company several times, I beg to differ with Sondheim on this one... but I digress. )

Despite this declaration, Barrowman realized that he had things in common with Bobby: “Bobby is morally frozen, and this coolness affects his personal happiness. At that time in my life, I was politically frozen. I realized that my reticence to speak out about issues that concerned me might be affecting someone else’s personal happiness. I had to be more confident and clear in who I was as a gay man, and I needed to become more of an activist in areas where I could make a difference.” (Post-coming out in 2004, he would go on to receive the U.K. group Stonewall’s Entertainer of the Year Award in 2006. )

Before this, Barrowman had himself experienced on-the-job discrimination, revealed when talking about his stint on the short-lived U.S. soap Central Park West in 1995-96 (which, interestingly, was created by the openly gay screenwriter and producer Darren Star, who would go on to create Sex and the City).

Playing straight character Peter Fairchild, Barrowman found himself called into the show’s production office. “Although the producers didn’t say it quite this bluntly, the message was loud and clear: do not let the public know that you’re gay and stop being seen in public with your partner.” Although Barrowman found the request “outrageous, ” the show ended too quickly for it really to become an issue.

The “partner” to whom the producers were referring was Barrowman’s long-term boyfriend, architect Scott Gill, whom he had first met while performing at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the south of England in 1993. Introduced by a mutual friend, Barrowman says that it was love at first sight on both sides: “The same charge of electricity, the same prophetic jolt.”

John and partner Scott Gill

In a chapter titled ‘Love Changes Everything’, Barrowman reflects on his relationship with Gill and their happy civil partnership ceremony in December 2006: “When I stepped across the threshold of the St. David’s Hotel that December afternoon to greet the press and well-wishers, the rush of sheer joy I felt was one I wished all gay couples could experience.”

Although the bubbly, external Barrowman is not given to deep soul-searching, some picture of the complementary dynamic between him and the evidently quieter Gill does emerge.

In an amusing aside, he describes himself shopping on vacation “while Scott lounged by the pool and read his fourth book of the trip,” and when they are teasing Barrowman’s niece and nephew, pretending that they have seen a bear: “Now, let me point out one of the differences between Scott and me. I see a bear and want to run like hell. Scott sees a bear and wants to know if it’s in its ‘bluff stance’. ”

In the end, you suspect that Barrowman is right when he summarizes: “In our relationship, I’m a bit like a sailboat. I’m always moving, riding the crest of the waves, letting the wind carry me in lots of directions. Scott’s my keel. He slows me down and gives me stability.”