Special offer: 'Revealing Mr Maugham'

The author Somerset Maugham, who stammered all his life, is the subject of a new film which premiered this March. View the trailer below. Discounted price if you buy the film via this page, and BSA gets a share of proceeds.

Maugham was a very successful playwright, novelist and short story writer of the early 20th century. He was also openly gay at a time where, in most countries, this was still illegal. He explored the issue of an ostensibly embarrassing, debilitating 'deformity' in his great autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage, where he gave the hero a club foot rather than a stammer.

Norbert Lieckfeldt, BSA's Chief Executive, comments: "The documentary does refer to his stammer quite a lot, both in his childhood and in later life. His granddaughter is shown talking about how hard it was sometimes for them as children to cope with his stammer, when he was telling the stories they loved, and how angry he would get if they finished his sentences for him. And how strange it was that he could read any text beautifully and fluently."

The film premiered on Saturday 24th March at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

There is a discounted price of €9.99 for BSA supporters (ie. if you buy via this page), and BSA gets 35p for each sale. The normal price is €14.99. Just use the link below to buy at the discounted price from SWiM cinema:

Buy from SWiM cinema.

Buying the film lets you download it. The film is 84 minutes long. You also get access to all the bonus material (including an interview with BSA's Chair Leys Geddes about how stammering might have affected Maugham), and streaming versions of the film. When you 'Buy Now' you get an email with a few links to download and instructions on how to stream the material. There is also an option (for the hearing impaired) of viewing the film with English sub-titles.

"For the first time, the full story is told of one of literatures most influential and misunderstood Gay Writers - W. Somerset Maugham, author of Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge and dozens of other classic stories

Featuring: Armistead Maupin, Alexander McCall Smith, Pico Iyer, Alan Furst, Ronald Harwood, Selina Hastings & Nicky Haslam plus many more."