The EU Commissioner for Enlargement Štefan Füle refused a Conservative MEP’s request to suspend human rights funding to the Turkish Cypriot community following slow progress on the repeal of the ban on homosexuality in the northern part of Cyprus.

Zoe Lyons, one of the UK’s favourite comedians, will host Stonewall’s 2013 Brighton Equality Walk. Zoe, a Brightonian herself, will also be at the start line to spur on the hundreds of supporters raising money for the gay equality charity’s work to tackle anti-gay bullying in schools.

Theatre company FRED has announced that its forthcoming production of a new play from the pen of Jonathan ap Emrys, The Lasting Sense of Sudden, has been selected to be a festival production at the 10th annual International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. The company will travel to Dublin in May where the production will be staged at the Powerscourt Townhouse Theatre.

TLA Releasing has acquired UK, US and French-speaking Europe rights for Alan Brown’s (Private Romeo) contemporary drama Five Dances and will release the film in selected theatres this spring with a DVD and VOD release to follow in Q3 2013. 

Collaborating with internationally renowned choreographer Jonah Bokaer, writer-director Brown has taken five gifted New York dancers, and tells a story about Chip (Broadway star Ryan Steele, in his first film role), an extraordinarily-talented 18-year-old who joins a small downtown modern dance company. In his first weeks of rehearsal, Chip is initiated into the rites of passage of a New York dancer's life, where discipline and endless hard work, camaraderie and competitiveness, the fear of not being good enough, and the joy of getting it just right, inform every minute of every day.