Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret Through the AIDS Crisis

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE 2023*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2023*

’I read the book in one go. I laughed and cried like a baby, and was transported back to a time of innocence, clouded by the enormity of the harsh reality . . . Just amazing’ CATHERINE ZETA JONES

’As it happens, I was also a Jill in the eighties - but not half as good a Jill as real Jill’ DAWN FRENCH

’Jill met the crisis head on . . . She held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going’ RUSSELL T DAVIES

A heartbreaking, life-affirming memoir of love, loss and cabaret through the AIDS crisis, from IT’S A SIN’s Jill Nalder

When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends - of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own - she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get.

But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the ’gay flu’, and Jill and her friends now found their formerly carefree existence under threat.

In this moving memoir, IT’S A SIN’s Jill Nalder tells the true story of her and her friends’ lives during the AIDS crisis -- juggling a busy West End career while campaigning for AIDS awareness and research, educating herself and caring for the sick. Most of all, she shines a light on those who were stigmatised and shamed, and remembers those brave and beautiful boys who were lost too soon.

’Thank God for people like [Jill] . . . I cannot recommend this book highly enough’ MICHAEL BALL

’An engaging, moving account’ TIMES SATURDAY REVIEW

’Simultaneously devastating and uplifting’ GRAZIA

’Engrossing, heart-breaking and inspiring’ MATT CAIN

Jill Nalder is originally from Neath, South Wales. She is a successful West End actress and was the inspiration behind Jill Baxter’s character in Russell T. Davies’ Channel 4 programme IT’S A SIN. She was also one of the founders and first chairperson of West End Cares, now called Theatre MAD: Make A Difference. To date the charity has raised over £10 million for HIV/AIDS.