Episodes

  • Mark S King: Desire, Defiance, Dancing

    Mark S King: Desire, Defiance, Dancing
    Jun 25 2026
    An American HIV journalist and long-term survivor reflects on four decades of living with HIV, from the pre-AIDS era of early 1980s West Hollywood to the age of Undetectable equals Untransmittable.SummaryIn 1980, Mark S King was a 19-year-old with a strawberry blonde fringe who won a car on The Price Is Right. His boyfriend Charlie was in the audience wearing a matching outfit. Five years later, a friend tested him for HIV after hours in a doctor's office - off the record, because a positive result could cost him his home and his job. The phone call that followed was brief: you're HIV positive, good luck, goodbye. No referral, no medication, no next steps. There was nothing to offer.What followed was a decade spent in the thick of the West Hollywood AIDS crisis - running experimental drugs across the Mexican border, holding dying friends' hands through the Shanti Foundation, and finding moments of wilful joy on San Diego dance floors. Mark lost Ron at 26 in a Connecticut nursing home, Marcos to CMV blindness and suicide, and Lesley surrounded by friends singing him songs. When combination therapy arrived in 1996, the relief came tangled with guilt, confusion, and maxed-out credit cards. Forty years on, Mark sits on a porch in Atlanta with his husband Michael and calls happiness the only revolution he has left.Key Moments[00:02] The strawberry blonde twink - Mark's childhood in Louisiana as an Air Force brat, finding role models in community theatre, and navigating desire in the Deep South[07:20] Winning a car on national television - the Price Is Right appearance in 1980, the matching outfits, and why Mark keeps returning to that footage as a snapshot of the "just before"[15:27] An encounter with Rock Hudson - a dinner in West Hollywood, an invitation back, and the world-weariness of a closeted star three years from dying on the nightly news[22:25] The envelope on the table - testing positive in 1985, the after-hours blood draw, and the two-week wait for a result that came with nothing attached[24:44] The Shanti Foundation and learning not to fix people - volunteering with the dying, the philosophy of compassionate presence, and the bank teller with Kaposi's sarcoma who just stopped showing up[30:36] Drug running to Tijuana - smuggling AZT across the border, packing it under the spare tyre, and dancing to Laura Branigan on the way home. Wilful joy.[35:49] Dick, Emile, and the brandy glass - Mark's brother and his partner's final act of love - assisted suicide.[41:11] The Lazarus effect - combination therapy arrives in 1996, and the impossible emotional whiplash of being told you might actually live[44:46] Long-term survivor as relic - why Mark resists being turned into a symbol, and why HIV remains the most fascinating societal mirror he knows[49:32] Joy as a mission statement - not bravado but disposition, and the message he would send back to the boy arriving in West Hollywood: trust your instinctsDedicationMark remembers Antoine, a gender-fluid young Black man in gold lamé who died of AIDS only a few years ago - a reminder that the crisis is not history for everyone.About Mark S KingMark S King is an American HIV journalist, essayist, and NLGJA LGBTQ Journalist of the Year. His memoir My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor was published in 2024. He was inducted into the NLGJA Hall of Fame in 2025 and is a GLAAD Award winner. He lives in Atlanta with his husband Michael. His blog is My Fabulous Disease.ResourcesMy Fabulous Disease — Mark's blog and writing archiveTerrence Higgins Trust — Long-term survivor support (UK)National AIDS Trust — HIV and the law in the UKThe 2025–2030 UK HIV Action PlanIf you have been affected by the themes in this episode, support is available at tht.org.uk.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    59 mins
  • Trailer: Series 3

    Trailer: Series 3
    Jun 10 2026
    A preview of the third series of HIV: The Morning After — ten new interviews with people living with HIV across four decades, five countries, and every assumption you thought you had.SummarySeries 3 of HIV: The Morning After brings ten new voices to the podcast. An American journalist who smuggled AZT across the Mexican border in the boot of his car. A fashion makeup artist who lived with HIV for 30 years without a single day of medication, carrying a rare gene mutation his doctors couldn't explain. A young woman who kept a physical notebook of lies to remember which cover story she'd given for the pill she took at lunch. A Ukrainian DJ who survived six overdoses on the streets of Kyiv and now drives antiretroviral medication through a war zone in his own car. A Ugandan-born woman who packed six months of pills and flew home to die, arriving in the UK with a CD4 count of one. A man who survived a hijacked 747 at eleven and found clarity on a single dose of LSD taken for cluster headaches. A Nigerian priest who fasted for 40 days to pray the gay away, married a woman under church pressure, and founded Africa's first inclusive LGBTQ church across 22 countries. A Black British-Caribbean woman who told nobody for ten years and found her way back to her body through yoga and Buddhism. An HIV consultant who went from writing prescriptions to needing them, becoming the first person with HIV to lead the British HIV Association. And an actor who was diagnosed at 16, kept it secret for 15 years, and turned his story into a one-man show that led to 53 five-star reviews and a part in It's a Sin.These are not cautionary tales. They are lives.The GuestsMark S King — HIV journalist and long-term survivor, diagnosed in 1985 in West Hollywood. Author of My Fabulous Disease.Laurence Close — Fashion hair and makeup artist, diagnosed in 1985. Lived 30 years without medication due to a rare CCR5-Delta 32 gene mutation. This episode is his first public disclosure.Ellie Harrison — Diagnosed at 21 in 2018. Spent 1,199 days in silence before going public on World AIDS Day 2021.Anton — Ukrainian DJ and harm reduction advocate, diagnosed in Kyiv. Founding member of the Ukrainian Network of People Who Use Drugs.Winnie Sseruma — Born in Sheffield, raised in Uganda, diagnosed in 1988 in the US. Co-founded the African HIV Policy Network. Arrived in the UK with a CD4 count of one.Hamish Noah — Born in Cambridge, raised across Southeast Asia and Africa. Diagnosed in January 2020. Recovery coach and HIV advocate.Reverend Jide Macaulay — Nigerian-born Anglican priest, diagnosed in 2003. Founder of the House of Rainbow, now operating in 22 countries.Louise Vallance — Black British-Caribbean woman, diagnosed in 2006 at 37. Told nobody for ten years. Yoga therapist and host of Aunty Lou's House.Dr Tristan Barber — HIV consultant at the Royal Free Hospital, diagnosed in 2002. First person living with HIV to chair the British HIV Association.Nathaniel Hall — Actor and activist from Stockport, diagnosed at 16 in 2003. Creator of First Time (53 five-star reviews) and cast member of It's a Sin.ResourcesTerrence Higgins TrustNational AIDS TrustPositively UKGeorge House Trust — ManchesterThe 2025–2030 UK HIV Action PlanNew episodes released weekly. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.If you have been affected by the themes in this series, support is available at tht.org.uk.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    5 mins
  • Compilation Special: Still Here

    Compilation Special: Still Here
    May 28 2026

    This is a special compilation episode featuring highlights from Series 1 and 2 of HIV: The Morning After, released ahead of Series 3 in June 2026.

    This episode covers what that means to be here today. It covers learning to live with uncertainty as a medical instruction and a life philosophy. The specific weight of a 20-year prognosis delivered cheerfully, echoing in your head on the London Underground for days. The six months after a diagnosis so bleak and depressive that living and dying became things you could weigh against each other with complete neutrality - and the moment of choosing to live, not because it would be easy, but because there would also be great food, great sex and the possibility of wonder.

    This episode also includes an exclusive clip from Series 3 featuring journalist Mark S King.

    Resources

    Terrence Higgins Trust - HIV information, support and campaigning www.tht.org.uk

    NAM aidsmap - Clear, evidence-based information about HIV www.aidsmap.com

    Positively UK - Peer support for people living with HIV in the UK www.positivelyuk.org

    National AIDS Trust - Policy and advocacy www.nat.org.uk

    Samaritans - Free, confidential support if you're struggling Call: 116 123 | www.samaritans.org

    Links

    Listen to the full episodes:

    1. Chris Smith — Series 2, Episode 1
    2. Matthew Hodson — Series 1, Episode 7
    3. Alexander Cheves — Series 2, Episode 2
    4. Diego Agurto Beroiza — Series 2, Episode 5
    5. Nikolaj Tange Lange — Series 2, Episode 9

    Music by Paul Leonidou: www.unstoppablemonsters.com

    Subscribe and listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    31 mins
  • Compilation Special: Who Gets To Tell This Story?

    Compilation Special: Who Gets To Tell This Story?
    May 21 2026
    This is a special compilation episode featuring highlights from Series 1 and 2 of HIV: The Morning After, released ahead of Series 3 in June 2026.The epidemic had a story. A specific kind of story, told in a specific kind of voice - white, male, gay. It wasn't false. But it was one story, and it left a great many people out.This episode covers what it costs to be absent from the dominant narrative: to be a Black woman told by her GP that HIV doesn't affect ladies like her; to grow up without seeing a single image of yourself in any HIV information; to spend years planning your funeral while your friends planned their weddings.These are remarkable people. And the episode ends with a white, gay man whose activism is aimed very much at ensuring all voices are heard, not just those that look like him.ResourcesTerrence Higgins Trust - HIV information, support and campaigning www.tht.org.ukNAM aidsmap - Clear, evidence-based information about HIV www.aidsmap.comPositively UK - Peer support for people living with HIV in the UK www.positivelyuk.orgNational AIDS Trust - Policy and advocacy www.nat.org.ukSamaritans - Free, confidential support if you're struggling Call: 116 123 | www.samaritans.orgLinksListen to the full episodes:Gus Cairns - Series 1, Episode 9Marc Thompson - Series 1, Episode 10Peter Willis - Series 1, Episode 8Martin Fenerty - Series 2, Episode 4Music by Paul Leonidou: www.unstoppablemonsters.comSubscribe and listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTubeThis is a special compilation episode featuring highlights from Series 1 and 2 of HIV: The Morning After, released ahead of Series 3 in June 2026.ResourcesTerrence Higgins Trust - HIV information, support and campaigning www.tht.org.ukNAM aidsmap - Clear, evidence-based information about HIV www.aidsmap.comPositively UK - Peer support for people living with HIV in the UK www.positivelyuk.orgNational AIDS Trust - Policy and advocacy www.nat.org.ukSamaritans - Free, confidential support if you're struggling Call: 116 123 | www.samaritans.orgLinksListen to the full episodes:Gus Cairns - Series 1, Episode 9Marc Thompson - Series 1, Episode 10Peter Willis - Series 1, Episode 8Martin Fenerty - Series 2, Episode 4Music by Paul Leonidou: www.unstoppablemonsters.comSubscribe and listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTubeThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    21 mins
  • Compilation Special: The People Who Stayed

    Compilation Special: The People Who Stayed
    May 14 2026

    This is a special compilation episode featuring highlights from Series 1 and 2 of HIV: The Morning After, released ahead of Series 3 in June 2026.

    What do you do when you were quietly certain you were going to die, and then you didn't? This episode is about the long aftermath of survival.

    It covers what grief becomes when it stops being a storm and turns into ordinary weather: going to so many funerals you stop going. It covers the particular invisibility of being a young Black gay man in HIV services that hadn't imagined you existed. A GP treating dying patients while privately compartmentalising his own diagnosis. A decade spent keeping life deliberately small - no plans, no ambitions, nothing too far ahead - and the slow, confusing work of learning to want things again when the assumption of early death turned out to be wrong.

    And everywhere, just beneath the surface, the people who were months too early for the drugs that would have saved them.

    Resources

    Terrence Higgins Trust - HIV information, support and campaigning www.tht.org.uk

    NAM aidsmap - Clear, evidence-based information about HIV www.aidsmap.com

    Positively UK - Peer support for people living with HIV in the UK www.positivelyuk.org

    National AIDS Trust - Policy and advocacy www.nat.org.uk

    Samaritans - Free, confidential support if you're struggling Call: 116 123 | www.samaritans.org

    Links

    Listen to the full episodes:

    1. Gus Cairns - Series 1, Episode 9
    2. Marc Thompson - Series 1, Episode 10
    3. Peter Willis - Series 1, Episode 8
    4. Martin Fenerty - Series 2, Episode 4

    Music by Paul Leonidou: www.unstoppablemonsters.com

    Subscribe and listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    23 mins
  • Compilation Special: What the Body Carries

    Compilation Special: What the Body Carries
    May 7 2026

    This is a special compilation episode featuring highlights from Series 1 and 2 of HIV: The Morning After, released ahead of Series 3 in June 2026.

    What did HIV do to four people across four different decades, and what effect was left when the acute crisis passed?

    Seven and a half stone in an ambulance. A bruise on a chest that didn't go away. Retiring on the basis of six months to live and then watching six months keep getting longer. Seven pills before school, wrapped in tin foil at house parties and smuggled to a toilet cubicle so no one would see.

    And what it means to have never known life without HIV: no before, no after, just the continuous fact of it, and the pills that became, in their own way, a form of certainty when everything else felt out of control.

    Resources

    Terrence Higgins Trust - HIV information, support and campaigning www.tht.org.uk

    NAM aidsmap - Clear, evidence-based information about HIV www.aidsmap.com

    Positively UK - Peer support for people living with HIV in the UK www.positivelyuk.org

    National AIDS Trust - Policy and advocacy www.nat.org.uk

    Samaritans - Free, confidential support if you're struggling Call: 116 123 | www.samaritans.org

    Links

    Listen to the full episodes:

    1. Anthony Bird — Series 1, Episode 6
    2. Garry Brough — Series 2, Episode 4
    3. Peter Willis — Series 1, Episode 8
    4. Eli Fitzgerald — Series 2, Episode 7

    Music by Paul Leonidou: www.unstoppablemonsters.com

    Subscribe and listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    19 mins
  • Compilation Special: The Waiting Room

    Compilation Special: The Waiting Room
    Apr 30 2026

    This is a special compilation episode featuring highlights from Series 1 and 2 of HIV: The Morning After, released ahead of Series 3 in June 2026.

    A life can divide cleanly into before and after. This episode sits in the gap between them - in the waiting room, the clinic corridor, the flat you don't remember getting back to.

    It covers what it felt like to receive a diagnosis across four different decades, from 1982 to the early 2020s: the isolation that followed, the absence of information aimed at people like you, the impossible mask worn at work, the referral slip kept under a bed for months. It covers what it means to plan your own death and then, for reasons you didn't expect, not go through with it. And it covers what it means to be the youngest voice in a series like this - diagnosed in an era of effective treatment, never having personally lost anyone to HIV, and yet carrying the weight of that history as something visceral and present.

    Content note: this episode contains a description of suicidal ideation.

    Resources

    Terrence Higgins Trust - HIV information, support and campaigning www.tht.org.uk

    NAM aidsmap - Clear, evidence-based information about HIV www.aidsmap.com

    Positively UK - Peer support for people living with HIV in the UK www.positivelyuk.org

    National AIDS Trust - Policy and advocacy www.nat.org.uk

    Samaritans - Free, confidential support if you're struggling Call: 116 123 | www.samaritans.org

    Links

    Listen to the full episodes:

    1. Jonathan Blake - Series 1, Episode 1
    2. Jim Vogiatzis - Series 1, Episode 3
    3. Angelina Namiba - Series 2, Episode 3
    4. Jan - Series 2, Episode 8

    Music by Paul Leonidou: www.unstoppablemonsters.com

    Subscribe and listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube




    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    20 mins
  • dan glass: Rage, Resistance, Reconnection

    dan glass: Rage, Resistance, Reconnection
    Apr 9 2026
    Summarydan glass was born in 1983, the year HIV was first identified as HIV rather than the gay plague. They grew up under Thatcher's Section 28 with only EastEnders' Mark Fowler and tombstone adverts for reference. Death, isolation, internalised stigma - that was all HIV meant. When dan was diagnosed in their early twenties, they got drunk, went to a friend's house, cried, and she helped them to the toilet. The next morning, they told their boss it wasn't flu after all.For five years, dan refused treatment. The fear was too deep, the conditioning too absolute. Section 28 had taught them they were wrong, that whatever happened was their fault, that no one would help. The gravity of that silence was lethal. When dan finally saw a doctor in Berlin who told them their CD4 count meant they had AIDS, they collapsed in the shower the next day.What followed was transformation through community. A friend in Berlin, Juliana, threw a party where everyone screamed in each other's faces and painted their feet white to pre-empt the side effects dan feared most. The next morning, in Tempelhof park, dan took their first pills. A lover named Terry introduced them to ACT UP. dan went down the rabbit hole and never came back.Since then, dan has co-founded the reformed ACT UP London, organised die-ins in Trafalgar Square, helped secure PrEP access through spectacular direct action, written two books on queer radical history, co-founded Bender Defenders for queer self-defence, and is about to open London's first community-run LGBTQ+ space at the Joiners Arms. According to Nigel Farage, they're scum. dan takes that as a compliment.This is the final episode of series two, and it's a fitting end: grief alchemised into action, silence challenged at every turn, and friendship held up as political resistance.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:43 - Section 28 meant death. Growing up under Thatcher, HIV meant death, isolation, internalised stigma, your own fault. Mark Fowler on EastEnders was the only reference. There were no queer friends, no ropes to hang on to.00:04:22 - Missing stories. What was missing from those messages was the brilliance of the community. People weren't told the true human stories. Section 28 silenced homosexuality in schools, libraries, public institutions. dan grew up in a religious, conservative environment where being gay was an abomination. Silence layered on silence.00:06:27 - Seroconversion. dan had what seemed like flu but wasn't. A doctor in Brighton said those three letters. It struck deep. dan didn't know what it meant scientifically or socially—just death. They got drunk, went to a friend's house, cried, and she helped them to the toilet.00:08:23 - Telling friends one by one. It was emotionally exhausting. So dan decided to do it all at once: a show called Shafted, based on Stars in Their Eyes, on the 25th anniversary of ACT UP. At the end, they were fired from a 12-foot cock-shaped human cannon across the audience, announcing: "Tonight everyone, I'm living with HIV."00:10:47 - Five years without treatment. dan refused medication despite it being available. Living with HIV is more than pills into bodies. Fear, internalised stigma, the conditioning that you were doomed—Section 28's pathology was hyper-individualism. You had to parent yourself because you were told you were wrong.00:12:08 - Shingles in Glasgow. dan's nurse called it "the red roses from hell." Their immune system was in a bad way. Stress correlated with sickness. White things on the tongue, red rashes—signs the body was failing. Still, dan was rigid with fear.00:13:44 - Berlin and the truth. A doctor in Berlin, smoking fags in a tight white shirt, gave dan the statistics. They went home, looked up what it meant, and realised they had AIDS. They collapsed in the shower the next day.00:15:09 - Juliana's party. dan was terrified of the side effects—nightmares, white feet. Juliana threw a party where everyone screamed in each other's faces and painted their feet white. You face fear by facing it.00:17:03 - First pills in Tempelhof. The next morning, in dan's favourite park, they swallowed the pills. Game changer. Choice made. The physiological symptoms cleared rapidly.00:17:51 - Terry's challenge. A lover named Terry, an ACT UP Paris activist, challenged dan's shame. "It's not your shame. It's society's." They went to bed. The next morning, Terry told dan about ACT UP. dan went down the rabbit hole.00:19:13 - The second silence. Around 2014, HIV was in what activists called "the second silence": rising transmissions among certain populations without access, cuts to education and support due to austerity, and a general belief that HIV was a thing of the 80s and 90s.00:20:28 - Peter Staley and reformation. dan contacted Peter Staley, protagonist of How to Survive a Plague, organised a screening in London, and met Andrea Morden, a lifelong ACT UP activist whose partner John had died of AIDS. That meeting led to the reformation of ACT UP...
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    1 hr and 2 mins