THEGAYUK

Tag: Above The Stag

Above The Stag is the UK’s only dedicated theatre space for LGBT theatre productions. Based in Vauxhall south of the river in London.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Get Em Off, Above The Stag

    ★★★ | Get Em Off

    Well, it’s not exactly The Full Monty – it’s called ‘Get ‘Em Off!’ Set in the suburbian enclave of Croydon, ‘Get ‘Em Off’ takes place in the only gay bar around for miles – The Golden Canary – and it’s a dive.

    Run by proprietor/proprietress Quinny, a/k/a Baz (Dereck Walker), it’s a bar that needs some spicing up. So it’s his employee Mitch (Joe Goldie) who comes up with the idea of turning Monday night into a gay strip competition to bring in more customers. And so that’s what they do. And they encourage their customers to enter in the hopes of winning the cash prize. Milosh (Michael Nelson), from Kosovo, is one of the first ones to enter, he’s definitely not shy about showing his body. Then there’s Ricky (Ashley Daniels), who is a regular customer to the bar when his boring partner (David Michael Hands) is out of town on business and who actually forbids Ricky from going to the gay bar as he doesn’t think they should lead ’that kind of lifestyle.’ But there’s a spark between Milosh and Ricky that’s palpable.

    Meanwhile back at the bar, Baz, all dolled up in sequins and a head wrap, hosts the competition. Mitch urges his all so sexy and very hot straight friend Luke (Tom Bowen) to enter, hey Luke’s wife is about to give birth to their first child so he says why not? And it’s poor Brian (Stuart Harris), Mitch’s school teacher, newly single after six years, trying to find his way back into the gay scene, and finds himself at The Golden Canary. With the strip competition such a success, Quinny decides to enter her men in a national strip competition. So ‘Get Em Off’ follows The Full Monty’s plot where the men practice and practice for the competition where we all know what’s going to happen.

    ‘Get Em Off’ should’ve been called ‘The Gay Full Monty.’ It’s a camp musical comedy with very funny lines but not very funny nor memorablesongs (one is titled ‘Get Your Dick Out).

    The book, by Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper, gives Quinny some of the best lines in the show, though Milosh and Mitch have some as well. Walker steals the show even when his/her men get naked – he’s hilarious! Hands also deserves a mention as he plays various roles and is unrecognizable in each one of them. ‘Get Em Off’ is not the best show the Above the Stag has produced, but it’s perhaps perfect for the summer season when all gay boys want to do is see to watch light-hearted fare with cute guys and lots of nudity. This is the show for them.

    Get Em Off run at Above The Stag until 28/08/16

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Sins of Jack Saul

    ★★★★ | The Sins Of Jack Saul

    The Above the Stag Theatre is now presenting the new musical ‘The Sins of Jack Saul.’ Well who is Jack Saul you might ask?

    Jack Saul was a male prostitute in London who went by the name ‘Dublin Jack,’ because he was from Dublin. He left for London at the age of 22 and wasn’t sure what to find there. He eventually fell into prostitution and was involved in two major homosexual scandals. For it being the late 1800s, homosexuality was scandalous and even criminal behaviour.

    But what made Jack Saul famous (or infamous if you will) was his involvement with a lieutenant in the Irish army, and working in a male brothel in London – at 19 Cleveland Street (which in itself was a musical at the Stag called ‘Cleveland Street – The Musical‘) . So ‘The Sins of Jack Saul’ tell his interesting and scandalous life through song and a bit of dance, and a helpful narration by the devil (provided by the handsome yet evil looking Michael Gonsalves).

    It’s a typical production for Above the Stag, and through this production we get to learn who Saul is and what were his sins.

    ‘The Sins of Jack Saul’ is based on the book ’The Sins of Jack Saul – the True Story of Dublin Jack and The Cleveland Street Scandal’ by Scottish playwright Glenn Chandler.

    Saul is played by Jack McCann, who is very good and believable. We get to relive his life, his life back home in Ireland with his mother (Felicity Duncan, who also plays other roles, including a French Prostitute) and his disapproving brother (Ciaran Bowling – who also geniously plays Lieutenant KIrwan – the army officer Saul gets involved with).

    We see Saul become an in-demand call boy – sleeping with very important people, including Lord Euston (David Mullen), a relationship that would eventually be the catalyst for the downfall of the brothel, and for Jack. ‘The Sins of Jack Saul’ is set to music, with appropriate songs to match the plot (‘I Always Wanted a Man in Uniform’ and ‘Pornography’) being a couple of the standouts.

    ‘The Sins of Jack Saul’ is a satirical romp through the eyes of one of London’s most notorious rent boys.

    The Sins Of Jack Saul plays at Above The Stag until 12 th June 2016

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Haram Iran

    THEATRE REVIEW | Haram Iran

    ★★★★★ | Haram Iran

    CREDIT: Above The Stag
    CREDIT: Above The Stag

    Two young men were publicly hanged in a square in Mashhad, Iran on 19th July 2005. The new play Haram Iran tells this horrific story.

    Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari were both teenage boys who liked to hang out together. But it was suspected that these two young men had a homosexual affair, though the true nature of their crime had never actually been confirmed. But they were publicly executed after being convicted on the trumped up charges of raping a 13-year old boy.

    The Above the Stag theatre in Vauxhall has produced a play that re-enacts and tries to give credence and understanding to the story of these two young men, and their lives, and their execution. It’s an amazing and relevant play.

    Ayaz (Viraj Juneja) and Mahmoud (Andrei Costin) play ball, study together and hang out at Ayaz’s house. They’re fast becoming good friends, enough so that it makes Fareed (Merch Husey) jealous. Mahmoud spends a lot of time at Ayaz’s house, in his bedroom, just hanging out. Ayaz is obsessed with books, books that his mother (Silvana Malmone) has illegally kept as she’s not allowed to have them because of Sharia law.

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    Ayaz is most enraptured by The Catcher in the Rye, and he reads passages of the book to Mahmoud. Some of the passages are sexual, making the young men a bit turned on. One day Ayaz notices huge marks on Mahmoud’s back, caused by whippings inflicted on him by his father. Ayaz rubs oil on Mahmoud’s back, but it’s this act, witnessed by Fareed, which causes their downfall. Ayaz is initially charged with corrupting, and penetrating Mahmoud, is thrown in jail, and repeatedly raped by the prison guard (Fanos Xenofos). Eventually they are both charged with consensual homosexual acts and the judge (George Savvides) punishes them to death.

    ALSO READ: Gay Air France flight attendants fear for their lives if forced to travel to newly opened route to Iran

    Haram Iran is a hugely important play that highlights the brutality and injustice that these two young innocent men endured in Iran. While not every scene in Haram Iran might not have actually taken place, what is fact is the murder at the hands of the Iranian government of these two young men.

    Directed by Gene David Kirk with brutal and emotional intensity, Haram Iran was written by Lawyer Jay Paul Deratany, who happened to find the story online. And each member of the cast are excellent. Juneja and Costin are both very believable as Ayez and Mahmoud, young and innocent but punished nonetheless. Maimone as Ayaz’s mother is superb in her role. Xenofos is very scary (and a bit too believable) as the prison guard who shows no mercy, while and Savvides is downright cold, mean and heartless as the judge.

    Haram Iran is a brutal yet delicate story of two young men who didn’t deserve to die because of who they were.

    Haram Iran plays at Above The Stag until the 1st May 2016

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Alright Bitches

    ★★★★★ Alright Bitches | Winter blues getting you down on your knees, feeling the cold-finger from old Jack Frost or just in need of some sun, sand and seamen?

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  • THEATRE REVIEW | Alright Bitches, Above The Stag

    THEATRE REVIEW | Alright Bitches, Above The Stag

    ★★★ Alright Bitches | Let’s go on a trip to Gran Canaria via Above the Stag Theatre in their newly-penned play ‘Alright Bitches.’

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  • THEATRE REVIEW | Tinderella, Cinders Slips it In is a real sparkle of a production!

    Above the Stag theatre has done it again and produced another hilarious panto in ‘Tinderella: Cinders Slips it In.’ ★★★★

    The theatre has produced many a camp panto in years past. These include ‘Dick Whittington: Another Dick in City Hall’ in 2009, ‘Sleeping Beauty: One Little Prick’ in 2011, and last year’s ‘Treasure Island: The Curse of the Pearl Necklace.’ But with ‘Tinderella: Cinders Slips it In‘ the Stag has outcamped, and outdone, all its previous pantos. It’s as camp as christmas and as gay as eggnog. And it’s hilarious.

    The title says it all. The show is a take off on Cinderella, and in the Stag’s version Prince Charming is searching the kingdom for a man (and NOT a woman) who fits into the glass slipper, in the kingdom of Slutvia. And that man is Cinders. He cooks and cleans and does the chores for his wicked evil stepmother Countess Volga and her two vile daughters Nicole Ferrari and Maude Escort. But then one day, while on a gay app on his mobile phone, he meets Prince Charming, and it is love at first sight for both of them. But Cinders’ phone gets ruined (I won’t say how!), and he’s unable to contact, or be contacted by, the very handsome young Prince.

    But there is a Fairy Godmother, in the form of The Fairy, and she’s the one who, with the help of the adorable Buttons, makes sure that Cinders gets to the ball to be reunited with Prince Charming, though the Prince’s father, King Ludwig, has no clue that his son is jonesing for another man. It’s all a laugh a minute when the show takes us from the Countesses’ kitchen to the King’s office to a courgette that gets turned into, funny enough, a mode of transport to which Cinders to the palace! We also are treated to songs about balls, a clever slow-motion scene that involves the entire cast, and enough campiness and cute boys to make even Alan Carr blush. And to top it off, we are spoiled with Slutvia’s Eurovision song!

    What can one say about a show that has ok acting, ok singing, and an ok script? Well – it’s brilliant! You’ll be laughing from the opening scenes which include a giant rat, to the audience participation bits (there are quite a few and boy are they clever!), up to the final heartwarming and groin inflaming scenes. It’s a show that’s over two hours but it flies by. And the cast are perfect, from Joseph Lycett-Barnes as Prince Charming to Lucas Meredith as Buttons and Grant Cartwright as Cinders – everyone does their part, and they all act very well with each other! From the writers and director of total sell-out hits ‘Get Aladdin,’ ‘Jack Off the Beanstalk,’ and ‘Treasure Island – The Curse of the Pearl Necklace’ (Martin Hooper and Jon Bradfield) and directed by Andrew Beckett, Above the Stag has put on another memorable show.

    Tinderella: Cinders Slips it In is playing until January 16th, 2016. Most performances are sold out but there are a few tickets left on various dates. To book, please go here: http://www.abovethestag.com/shows/

     

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Sum Of Us

    A father who loves and accepts his gay son is the theme of the new play ‘The Sum of Us.’ ★★★★

    In 1994, a young Russell Crowe played the gay son in the movie version of The Sum of Us which was originally staged as a play in New York City in 1990. Now a new version of the play ‘The Sum of Us,’ which has never played in the UK, has just opened at the Above the Stag Theatre in Vauxhall.

    Harry (Sephen Connery-Brown) is a forty-something widower raising his twenty-something young son Jeff (Tim McFarland), who happens be gay. Harry is not bothered about his son being gay, he actually encourages Jeff to go out and meet other guys, to enjoy life while you can while you are young. And Harry doesn’t mind when Jeff brings other guys over to their home. Jeff is good-looking and athletic with a very positive look on life, but he says there’s a space in his heart that is empty, a space that could be filled by another man. When he meets someone he likes (Greg – played by Rory Hawkins), he’s immediately smitten. But it’s Harry who interrupts the two young men who are on the couch getting to know each other. Harry says a bit too much about Jeff, and their close father and son relationship makes Greg feel insecure about his own relationship with his father. Meanwhile Harry, after being a widower for a number of years, also starts dating – he feels like it’s time to get out there and meet another woman. And he does. Her name is Joyce (Annabel Pemberton), and her and Harry are getting on like wildfire. But when she learns that he has a gay son, she just can’t accept this. Firstly she’s angry that Harry didn’t tell her when they started dating, secondly she just can’t accept gay people at all. Even after Harry proposes to her, she just doesn’t want to see him anymore. So thus we have a father and a son who both yearn to be with someone yet obstacles get in their way. And as Harry tells Jeff, he is the sum of us, the sum of him and his late wife, and the sum of his grandparents and great-grandparents. Actually, we are all the sum of us, and this is the message of the play.

    Above the Stag Theatre really sets the bar high on this one. Their previous shows had names such as ‘Rent Boy: The Musical’ and ‘Bathhouse: The Musical.’ However, they have now produced a play that is serious, heartwarming and very well-acted. The Sum of Us is a story that most gay men may not relate to; who can say that their fathers have whole heartedly accepted their homosexuality. But the play, written by David Stevens, who also wrote the film version and the original play version, successfully combines the son’s and father’s search for love and the close relationship they have with each other. And in the end, the message is that we all want someone to love and someone to love us, no matter whether you are gay or straight.

    Connery-Brown is great as Harry, as is McFarland as Jeff. They have a real rapport as father and son, and even resemble each other a bit. Hawkins and Pemberton are fine as the other halves, who may or may not wind up in the men’s lives. The set, down to the details of the1990’s script, cleverly goes from a living room to a park, in this cute theatre that is nice and cozy with a bar to match.

    The Sum of Us is playing at Above the Stag Theatre until October 4th. Tickets can be bought here:

    http://www.abovethestag.com/shows/

    Buy tickets now – it’s selling out fast!

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Rise Like A Phoenix

    ★★ | Rise Like A Phoenix

    Things have changed a great deal since the days of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg and Tony Kushner’s brilliant Angels in America. HIV is something we can talk about more openly, people don’t die anymore, and, with treatment, can live a pretty normal life, though there is still a lot of stigma attached to it.

    Paul Emelion Daly’s new play, Rise Like a Phoenix, is billed as a comedy, but, apart from some admittedly hilarious one-liners, it actually takes itself rather seriously, maybe too seriously. As an HIV negative man, maybe I found it hard to identify with the five gay men, all of them HIV-positive, in Daly’s play, but I’m pretty sure that the majority of my HIV positive friends would have a problem too. Too many of the characters were fixated on the blame game, how they acquired the virus, who gave them the virus, and indeed, not giving too much away, much of the story revolved around a love triangle, in which one of the characters had unknowingly given it to one of the men, who then unknowingly gave it to another.

    I was hoping that a new play about HIV would take a more positive stance, but it seemed to me, that, for all the talk of the success of antiretroviral therapy, emotionally the play was still stuck in the 90s, with its reminders of those tombstone adverts. But the whole landscape has changed since then and we live in a far more positive world (in both senses of the word) than we did? Why was there no talk of TasP (Treatment as Prevention), of PEP or PrEP, the once a day pill that stops you getting HIV?

    I’m afraid I found it all rather dispiriting and negative.

    Performances were good, but Tim McArthur’s usually faultless sense of pace seemed to have deserted him this time round and the play dragged for too much of the time.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Bathhouse, The Musical

    ★★★★ | Bathhouse, The Musical

    For their second production of 2015, Above The Stag have chosen to revive their hugely successful production of Bathhouse The Musical.

    It comes with a few changes of cast and new choreography by Carole Todd, a choreographer of some renown, who comes with an impressive list of credits which includes West End musicals as well as work at the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells.

    What was always a hugely entertaining and hilarious show now emerges slicker, tighter and cleaner.

    In case you missed it last time, the show is set for its entirety in a Bathhouse, with the cast wearing nothing but towels throughout. The story (such as it is) revolves around the adventures of young Billy, who starts out a bathhouse virgin, but finishes a lot more experienced. He is guided through his adventures by the disembodied voice of Giles Brandreth.

    The score is a wonderfully witty amalgam of styles ranging from hoedown to full out Broadway ballads with quite a few other musical references between. With song titles like I’m a Bear Chaser, the hilarious Penises Are Like Snowflakes, Clickin’ for Dick and Seduction Tango, the jokes aren’t exactly subtle, but nor are they meant to be.

    In a show that is such an ensemble piece, it would be invidious to single out any one individual. Each and every one gets their moment to shine and they are all excellent, so kudos to Will Ferris, Matthew Harper, John R Harrison, Ryan Lynch, Luke Webber and Tim McArthur, who also directs the fast-paced production, which doesn’t flag for one second.

    Great entertainment, not so pure and simple.

    Bathhouse the Musical runs at Above the Stag until 29 march 2015.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Boys Upstairs

    ★★★★ | The Boys Upstairs

    For their first play of 2015, Above the Stag have turned to another American comedy, The Boys Upstairs. Dubbed a cross between Sex and the City and The Boys in the Band, Jason Mitchell’s play first premiered in the 2009 New York Fringe Festival, where it played a completely sold-out run at the Soho Playhouse. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it achieves a similar feat at Above The Stag in Vauxhall.

    Brilliantly witty and funny, the play details the lives of three young chums, their disastrous love affairs, their arguments, and their quest to find out if the hunky new guy downstairs “is” or “isn’t.”

    Director Andrew Beckett’s pacing never falters in this fast and furious comedy, aided by a cast of talented young actors. Simon Weston maintained from start to finish a brilliantly dry delivery as the geeky, wise-cracking Josh who suffers from OCD, whilst Stanley Eldridge as his former boyfriend and untidy flatmate, was equally funny but also touchingly real as Seth. Joe Leather turned in a hilarious performance as the endlessly promiscuous Ashley, waking up every morning with a different lover, after getting drunk yet again, and Daniel Garcia was perfectly cast as the slightly gauche but stunningly handsome Eric. Last but not least there was the multi-talented Hugh O’Donnell who has a high old time playing all the various boyfriends that come in and out of their lives. Every one of his characterisations was spot on, but his turn as the musical theatre queen (one of Ash’s one-night stands) is an absolutely side-splitting tour de force, which quite rightly brings the house down.

    One should also mention Zoe Hurwitz’s excellent set design, one of the best I’ve seen at Above The Stag.

    If you’re suffering from those post-holiday January/February blues and feel you could do with a lift, you could do much worse than getting yourself down to Above The Stag for this crazy comedy, which is guaranteed to lift your spirits and get you laughing.

    The Boys Upstairs plays at Above The Stag in Vauxhall until February 2015

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Treasure Island, the Curse of the Pearl Necklace, Above The Stag

    Well it’s almost Christmas and the silly season has started, and what better way to spend a couple of silly hours than at the Above the Stag theatre in Vauxhall at their yearly pantomime Treasure Island and the Curse of the Pearl Necklace?

    Though this is the first of their pantos I have seen, over the six years since their first one in their old home in Victoria, they have played to sell-out audiences each year and it’s easy to see why. Definitely not the show for the family outing with mum, dad, grandma and the little ones, this is the show you creep out to enjoy with your mates.

    I’ll have to confess pantomime is not really my thing. I usually go out of my way to avoid it, but maybe if they were more like this one I’d go more often. The script by Jon Bradfield and Martin Hopper abounds in witty one-liners that come so fast and furious it’s almost impossible to keep up. They have retained most of the pantomime traditions that we have grown up with, and the audience catches on quickly, shouting out “behind you”, “oh yes you are” and joining in the community singing with gusto.

    Another of the panto traditions they have retained is the character of the dame, here in the guise of Jim Hawkins’s mother, Sally and Philip Lawrence gives quite the stand-out performance of the night. Whether it be delivering the naughty dialogue, joking with the audience or delivering the odd ad lib, he is the master (mistress?) of every situation, and frequently had us all in fits of laughter. Hugh O’Donnel as Ethel, the Merman (get it?), who acted as our narrator and guide, was equally hilarious, delivering all his lines with his tongue firmly lodged in one cheek. In a fairly large cast, though, absolutely no one let the side down.

    In the past I have been known to criticise Andrew Beckett’s direction (in The Gay Naked Play and You Should Be So Lucky) but here he is obviously in his element. My problem in the other plays was that too much of the action was played out front, encouraging the cast to mug too much to the audience, but that is exactly what is required of pantomime, and here it works splendidly. Aside from a section at the beginning of the second act, which flags slightly, the swift-moving action holds one’s attention throughout and moves seamlessly from one scene to another.

    One should also mention the superb set by David Shields and Daniel Johnson’s excellent musical direction.

    If, like me, you can be a bit allergic to the usual Christmas fare, then this irreverent, naughty, adult orientated gay romp is definitely for you.

    Treasure Island and the Curse of the Pearl Necklace plays until January 10 at Above the Stag and I’d advise you to book early, as it will no doubt sell out completely.