THEGAYUK

Tag: Gay Plays

The latest reviews and news about gay plays in London and around the UK.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope, St James Theatre, London

    ★★★ | Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope, St James Theatre, London
    “I became one of the stately homos of England.”

    From a conventional middle-class Surrey upbringing to global notoriety via his autobiography “The Naked Civil Servant”, Quentin Crisp was an extraordinary raconteur and wit. This new production, making its London premiere after an Edinburgh season, shows Quentin both in his beloved but squalid Chelsea flat as the 1970s dawn, and in his final years in his adopted New York, with the new millennium beckoning.

    The show draws on Quentin’s own writing and performances in a new script by Mark Farrelly, who also performs (West End credits include Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf with Matthew Kelly). He is directed by the renowned Linda Marlowe, who has won awards for her own solo work such as Berkoff’s Women.
    Quentin Crisp was an extraordinary character. Sharp-tongued, controversial and seemingly fearless. Born in an age when gay sex was illegal and liable to land you in prison, he embraced what he was: a flamboyant and effeminate homosexual. Facing ridicule, beatings and scorn as well as the ardour of men in the back alleys of Soho, he became a notorious character. With the publication of his autobiography and subsequent television film of this, starring John Hurt, he took infamy and his waspish wit to a much wider audience. His one-liners were legendary as were his regular television chat show appearances.

    Alienating the gay rights movement of the 1970s and causing furore with flippant comments about anything from AIDS being a passing fad, homosexuality being a terrible disease and his views on Princess Diana, perhaps more shockingly, the seemingly very English based institution, moved to New York and made his home there in his later years.

    Farrelly’s play has strengths and weaknesses. He manages to capture some of the wit, acidity and pathos of Crisp but at times this is slightly patchy. The script is stronger in the first half when Crisp is shown alone in his London flat, addressing the audience as he postures and quips with the thin veneer showing some vulnerability beneath. Although physically much sturdier than Crisp, he does manage, mostly, to convey an essence of Crisp’s character and demeanour. The second half, where Farrelly depicts Crisp performing in New York just before his death, felt much weaker with the relentless round of bon mots becoming a bit tired and the audience participation element feeling a bit unnecessary to the show. I did, however, laugh quite a lot and it was good to be reminded of some of Crisp’s better one-liners in this well-researched show.

    Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope is on at St James Theatre until the 7th of September 2014

    Buy tickets here: http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/quentin-crisp-naked-hope/

    The show will also be touring the U.K. from October with shows at Greenwich, Cardiff, Dundee and Hemel Hempstead.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Odd Shaped Balls, Etcetera Theatre, London

    ★ ★ ★ ★ | Odd Shaped Balls, Etcetera Theatre, London

    After a four-week run at The Edinburgh Festival with stellar five star reviews and award nominations, Miller Theatre Productions returns with Odd Shaped Balls for a limited run at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden.

    Odd Shaped Balls is a new play exploring the difficulties faced by gay sports stars through the eyes of a young rugby player. Brothers, Richard D Sheridan (playwright) and Chris Sheridan (actor), forged the show after witnessing a real life incident of homophobic bullying in the sport that they love.

    When rising rugby star James Hall is publicly ‘outed’ by his ex, his life becomes a struggle of dealing with increased media attention and the pressures of being labelled a role model on and off the pitch, while trying to adapt to changes in his personal relationships. The show takes an honest and often comical look into the changing room banter of male sports teams and their relationship to their fans and how it can intimidate players to live a lie.

    With rave reviews and a fascinating subject matter, this play looks like it’ll be well worth checking (as does Chris Sheridan, judging by the publicity shots).

    Odd Shaped Balls is on at the Etcetera Theatre from 18th to 20th of September.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | My Night With Reg

    ★★★★★ | My Night With Reg

    Kevin Elyot’s witty, warm and poignant 1994 play introduces six gay men in 1980s London over the course of three meetings. Shy and nervous Guy is hosting a flat warming and, as he prepares for the evening, John; the flashily handsome man he has spent over fifteen years nursing a crush on, arrives early.

    Bickering couple Bernie (a finicky bore) plus his testosterone fuelled bus driver partner Benny and joyously flamboyant Daniel make up the group of friends. Naïve young Birmingham painter and decorator Eric sits on the peripheries.

    Binding the men is Daniel’s lover, Reg, a mysterious and never seen figure who is never seen on stage but who the men have a surprising amount in common with, namely their night or nights with him. The script is hilarious, tightly written and very ably performed by this superb cast. The themes are writ large but always subtly played. The spectre of AIDS is a constant presence yet is never named explicitly. Unrequited love, betrayal, anxiety and loneliness are all heavily featured yet in such a way that they aren’t oppressive or laboured. It’s a testament to the late Elyot’s writing that this play is so tightly scripted and at 1 hour 50 minutes with no intervals, passes in a whir, never dragging.

    The cast are excellent and the characters are portrayed as well rounded and three-dimensional which is quite some feat in a play that has such comedic power also. There isn’t a weak link in the cast and special mention has to go to the very handsome Julian Ovenden’s prolonged moment of nudity (I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t an image that has stuck in my mind).

    Sadly, Elyot died before he could see this magnificent revival of a play that deserves not to be forgotten. Tickets are selling out very quickly so clamour online, queue for day returns, beg and scramble for one. This is a performance not to be missed.

    My Night With Reg runs until 27th of September 2014 at the Donmar Warehouse, London.

    Tickets available here

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Epstein – The Man Who Made The Beatles

    ★★★★ | Epstein – The Man Who Made The Beatles

    Brian Epstein was, as the title suggests, the man who made the Beatles. After seeing them play a lunchtime gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1961, he persuaded them to let him act as their manager (in spite of no previous experience in this role) and helped find them the record deal that would shoot them to stardom.

    In spite of his pivotal role in changing the face of British music he was often overlooked and missed out on recognition and credit for his behind the scenes influence.

    Jewish, gay in a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence and experiencing an early death aged 32 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills; what more do we know about Brian’s life? Andrew Sherlock’s well written two-hander delves into the psyche of Epstein by imagining a night just before his death where he brings back a young man (known only as This Boy) to his swanky Belgravia apartment. The writing is tight and witty and cranks up dramatic tension, let down only slightly by the overuse of puns relating to The Beatles and the odd cheesy line and too knowing comment about the sixties. There’s plenty of absurdity in Epstein’s preening and posturing and his fragile vanity but also pathos as he reveals himself as a man who has spent his life fighting his own corner in a bullying and disapproving world for a young Jewish gay man.

    Andrew Lancel (Coronation Street, The Bill) is excellent as Epstein, even managing to look spookily like the man himself. He portrays him with skill as a well-nuanced character with endearing vulnerabilities as well as touches of monstrosity and simpering pomposity. He inhabits the stage, a convincing and versatile sixties interior, with a real presence and is entirely believable. Lancel is clearly an experienced actor at the peak of his powers and is a sight well worth seeing. Newcomer Will Finlason, as This Boy, is also extremely talented and his character acts as part narrator and partly as an excellent foil that illuminates the character of Epstein.

    The set is perfect with stylish back projections and gorgeously stylish animations that work really well to enhance the piece and create period style. The beautifully restored underground gem of the Leicester Square Theatre is an ideal venue for the show as it was dubbed the Cavern in the Town back in the 1960s due to its hosting of music acts. It’s got air conditioning too if you need to escape an oppressively hot evening for a few hours too.
    This isn’t a perfect play but it’s a good play and well worth seeing for an entertaining couple of hours.
    The play runs until the 6th of September 2014
    Buy tickets here: http://epsteintheplay.com

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Bath House, Above The Stag

    ★★★★ | Bath House, Above The Stag

    For their summer production, Above The Stag have returned to one of their successes from 2009. Bath House The Musical is a fun, frothy, irreverent romp, which is quite perfect for a summer evening. Given the fact that the cast spend most of the time wearing nothing but a towel, I imagine they’re quite relieved they are performing on warm summer evenings.

    The story, such as it is, concerns young Billy, wide-eyed and innocent, who turns up at the baths looking for love and fun. Advised on bathhouse etiquette by the disembodied voice of Giles Brandreth, he explores the steam room, the locker room, the showers and anywhere else he might find a bit of cock. Threaded through this narrative is a bit of an unlucky love story, but, don’t worry, there are no real broken hearts, and very little interrupts the generally high spirits of the show. Lyrics and script are both very funny.

    The score is a witty amalgam of musical references from Ethel Merman to jolly Christmas songs, not that you have to get the musical references in order to enjoy songs with titles like I’m a Bear Chaser, Clickin’ for dick, Bathhouse ABCs, Christmas at the Baths, and the hilariously sweet Penises are like Snowflakes. I’m still humming the tune three days after the show.

    Tim McArthur, who directed Above The Stag’s recent successful production of Orton, directs and also stars in the show, and proves to have excellent comic timing and a lovely voice. His direction and choreography is well conceived and never less than apt, but I did occasionally wonder if he might not have had a bit more cheeky fun with the towels.

    In such an ensemble piece, it would be insidious to single out any of the performers, who all get their moment to shine and who all give excellent accounts of themselves. The show being rather short, it ends with a sort of disco megamix of all the songs from the show, a la Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. It’s quite a marathon and my only criticism would be that the entire cast found it a wee bit taxing. In my experience the only way you prepare for something like that is to build the stamina by repeating the number without a break twice or three times. Maybe they didn’t have time. No worries, I’m sure they will build up the stamina by the end of the run.

    The projected run of Bath House The Musical sold out so quickly that it has been extended by three weeks and will now run until August 9th, so if you didn’t get your booking in early, there’s still time to catch it.

    Bath House the Musical is at the Above the Stag theatre in Vauxhall.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Sandel, Above The Stags, London

    ★★★★ | Sandel, Above The Stag, London

    First published in 1968, Angus Stewart’s novel, Sandel, about the love affair between a 13-year-old choirboy, Anthony Sandel and a 19-year-old undergraduate, David Rogers, was out of print for 40 years, its subject matter considered somehow more shocking in today’s world than it was in 1968. Throughout that time it had become something of a cult classic, until production of this stage adaptation by Glenn Chandler at the Edinburgh Festival precipitated its re-publication last year.

    Maybe, it was deemed less shocking in those seemingly more innocent years. Indeed romantic attachments between young boys at public schools and at university were almost considered the norm. In Brideshead Revisited, Lord Marchmain’s Italian mistress Carla engages Charles Ryder in conversation when he and Sebastian are in Venice.

    “I think you are very fond of Sebastian,” she said.
    “Why, certainly.”
    “I know of these romantic friendships of the English and the Germans. They are not Latin. I think they are very good if they do not go on too long.”

    Presumably more acceptable back then, though of course Charles and Sebastian were of the same age (late teens). That said, frequently younger boys would form attachments to older boys at public school, and the age gap between Tony and David (6 years) is really not very much. When David takes Tony shopping for clothes, he poses as his elder brother, but one wonders whether the sales assistant, like most people at that time just turned a blind eye, assuming, like Carla, that this was just boys going through a phase they would grow out of.

    Reading the novel through twenty-first-century eyes, I confess to finding the relationship a little disturbing, and, if various reviews on Goodreads are anything to go by, I am not the only one. That I found it much less disturbing At the Stag is down to the excellent adaptation by Glenn Chandler, who also directs a brilliantly paced and pitched production, and to the superb performances of young Ashley Cousins as Tony and Joseph Lindoe as David. We see both the maturity of the boy Tony and the immaturity of the man David, which makes the attraction altogether more understandable, not to mention palatable. It was a master stroke to cast Tony with a young actor (Cousins) who is only a couple of years older than the character he is playing. He does so with a knowing innocence, for it is Tony who makes all the running, Tony who seduces David. It is an extraordinarily mature performance from a young actor. Lindoe is equally convincing as David, at that awkward stage between adolescent and adult. Expected to be the adult in the relationship, he nevertheless displays a touching naivety. The chemistry and connection between the two actors was absolutely convincing.

    The third character in the play is David’s best friend Bruce Lang, unrequitedly and secretly in love with David, who deals with his feelings by studying to become a Roman Catholic priest. His function is to act as David’s conscience, and, blessed with a sardonic, somewhat Wildean wit, he gets many of the best lines, ably delivered here by Calum Fleming, repeating his performance from the Edinburgh Fringe production.

    If you like to be challenged, then you should make it post haste down to Vauxhall for this superb production, which runs at Above The Stag until June 14th

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Positive, Waterloo East Theatre, London

    ★★★★ | Positive, Waterloo East Theatre, London
    “If Britney can get through 2007, then I can get through today.”

    Benji’s mantra has got him through the first year following his HIV diagnosis, and the time has now come to grab life by the balls and get his love life back on track. Inspired by true stories, Positive is an honest and uplifting story about an ordinary guy living with one of Britain’s most misunderstood diseases.

    Shaun Kitchener’s new play is a work of quiet and restrained power. The power of the piece is in its initial appearance as a light comedy with an almost sit-com like feel at times. Whilst the situations, characters and dialogue are often achingly funny, the message at the heart of the play is a strong one with a compelling depiction of what its like to experience living with a diagnosis of HIV in a frequently ignorant and uninformed world and a world where new drug treatments aren’t the easy ride that some people would like to believe they are.

    The seven-person cast are universally strong with standout performances from Sally George as Benji’s overbearing mother and Jamie-Rose Monk as Benji’s consultant. Writer and actor Shaun Kitchener gives a bemused and amusing turn as Benji’s potential new love interest.

    This is a quietly moving and uplifting play that will make you laugh as well as think. It’s definitely worth a look. The theatre itself is an intimate space that lends itself well to the production and is only a short walk from Waterloo station.

    Positive runs until the 1st of June 2014

    Buy tickets here: http://www.waterlooeast.co.uk/positive%20.html

  • THEATRE REVIEW | On Tidy Endings / Safe Sex, Tristan Bates Theatre

    ★★★★ | On Tidy Endings / Safe Sex, Tristan Bates Theatre

    Whose loss is it anyway? That’s the bone of contention between a gay man and a straight woman who meet to straighten up loose ends following the death of the man they both loved.

    The UK premiere of Harvey Fierstein’s one-act, On Tidy Endings, is a sometimes fiercely funny and finally poignant study of how the universal situation of losing a loved one takes on unique new qualities in the context of AIDS.

    Another short from Fierstein’s Safe Sex Trilogy, Safe Sex explores a relationship under strain in the early part of the AIDS crisis, with comic effect.

    Starring Deena Payne (Emmerdale, Calendar Girls) and CJ de Mooi (Eggheads), On Tidy Endings is a witty and well-written play which is a strong vehicle for Fierstein’s unique brand of irreverent humour with the killer one-liners and feistiness you’d expect from his work. It’s a cunning play, luring the viewer in with gentle humour and mild pathos, only to deliver some discretely timed knockout punches. Safer Sex is a more whimsical piece but still has merit and is entertaining, if slightly absurd in places. Anyone familiar with Torch Song Trilogy will see shades of Arnold in both Ghee, the over dramatic and neurotic partner and Arthur, the bereaved gay lover of Collin.

    Anyone who might be home at teatime may be familiar with C J de Mooi (a self-invented name, apparently meaning beautiful one!), the slightly pompous and prissy seeming figure, famous for a dramatic outburst on The Weakest Link and as quiz expert on Eggheads. Having seen him on TV, I was puzzled by the concept of him as a serious actor in the plays but managed to suspend disbelief and was pleasantly surprised. Whilst he’s not going to be winning any BAFTA awards any time soon, he managed to fulfil the roles adequately. Deena Payne and Cole Michaels as his co-stars, give strong and naturalistic performances which offset some of his limitations as a performer.

    The wealth of culture which came from the AIDS crisis is a great heritage and one which is well worth continually re-examining and reviving, especially in our more complacent times where HIV prevention is less prominent on the agenda. These two plays are well worth checking out.

    The production supports The Make a Difference Trust which raises money from the entertainment industry to support people living with HIV and AIDS. and those in the entertainment industry facing hardship as a result of living with long term conditions.

    The plays run until the 17th of May

    Buy tickets here:
    http://www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/safe_sex.asp
    Check out The Make a Difference Trust and their work here: http://www.madtrust.org.uk/

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Orton, Above The Stag

    ★★★★ | Orton, Above The Stag
    One of the great things about London is that you don’t have to go to the West End and pay huge amounts of money to witness great theatre. We have a thriving Fringe theatre, which can on occasion reap rich rewards, as it is presently doing at the tiny Above The Stag theatre in Vauxhall, presently the home for a brand new British musical, Orton based on Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell’s intense and ultimately tragic 16 year relationship.

    If you know anything of Joe Orton’s untimely demise, you might think that this would be a dark, gloomy musical, but it is in fact sublimely funny in places, delightfully entertaining and full of that wicked sense of humour that permeates all Orton’s plays. There’s no getting away from the grisly ending of course and Act II is certainly darker than Act I, but, even here, the introduction of the character of Kenneth Williams (brilliantly played by Simon Kingsley) lightens what could have been a turgid descent into tragedy and his wickedly Carry On inspired “Form An Orderly Line” received the biggest ovation of the night.

    At heart, though, this is a love story. Like many others, no doubt, I have often wondered why Orton stayed with Halliwell, when the relationship broke down, and the writes takes the view that Orton, deep down, did love Halliwell. It is also a story of colliding values, Halliwell’s rooted in the past; Orton’s more revolutionary and progressive. He was very much ahead of his time, making no apologies for his love of casual sex with labourers and the like in various public conveniences around London. This actually leads to one of the funniest numbers in the show, “Another Night Another Man”, which is brilliantly and hilariously staged by choreographer Phillip Aiden, making clever use of designer Andrew Holton’s multi-door set.

    Richard Silver’s musical numbers, if not especially memorable, always serve the action and move it forward as they should, and his lyrics are full of the kind of witticism that Orton himself would no doubt be proud of. One slight miscalculation was the inclusion of a song for Mrs Cordon, Orton and Halliwell’s neighbour. It is a lovely ballad, sung beautifully and touchingly by Valerie Cutko (who also puts in a terrific performance of Peggy Ramsay, Orton’s agent), but I question the wisdom of including so late in the show, when one feels the action should be moving inexorably towards its tragic denouement, a song for what is after all a minor character.

    Another was the inclusion of an on stage chorus while Halliwell was having his final breakdown. Though musically it works, I would have had them sing off stage, as if they were presumably voices in his head. Their presence on stage, especially in such a small space, is distracting.

    That is the only question mark I would place over Tim McArthur’s direction, whose pacing of Sean J Hume’s masterly book was always sure and apposite. He also gets wonderful performances from his two leads. Richard Dawes is careful to show the connection between Orton’s wide eyed curiosity at the beginning to his lust for life as he matures, while Andrew Rowney’s insecure Halliwell sows the seeds of his later madness from the moment of his initial obsession with Joe.

    In the movie Prick Up Your Ears, Orton says, when picking up an award, “ My plays are about getting away with it, and the ones who get away with it are the guilty ones. It’s the innocents who get it in the neck…… I’ve got away with it so far – and I’m going to go on;” words that turned out to be anti-prophetic.
    However Above The Stag have got away with it. They undoubtedly have a hit on their hands.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | A Hard Rain, Above The Stag

    ★★★ | A Hard Rain, Above The Stag

    Writers Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper, well-known for their successful pantomimes at The Above The Stag Theatre, have for the first time turned their hands to drama, and this new play is the result.

    A Hard Rain is set in a gay bar in New York in the days running up to the Stonewall Riots. The gay bars and clubs are run by the Mafia, who pay off a corrupt police force, which, from time to time raid the bars anyway, just to show everyone who’s boss.

    This bar becomes the backdrop for the story of a disparate set of characters; the drag queen and former Vietnam soldier, Rub; the closeted mafia owner of the bar, Frank; the young single mother barmaid Angie; the kind-hearted young cop, Danny; Ruby’s young high-flying bank employee boyfriend Josh; and Jimmy, a streetwise teenager who turns tricks to make a living.

    I don’t know how the collaboration between Bradfield and Harper works, whether both writers contribute to each scene, or whether each writer takes a different scene in entirety. Either way, the various individual scenes are well realised and play out very well, with a good sprinkling of witty one-liners to relieve the often gloomy nature of the scenario. The problem for me is that the various scenes did not coalesce into a coherent whole. There didn’t seem to be any direction to the narrative, no sense of it driving forward to that historic moment of the Stonewall Riots. At 90 minutes, Act One just meandered along, whereas Act II seemed rushed, as if the writers suddenly realised they had a lot of loose ends to tie up, their final point rather clumsily made. The numerous scenes meant that there were a lot of scene changes, the sheer mechanics of which continuously held up the action, hardly helping the flow, and I did wonder if the scene changes could have been simplified in some way.

    Though I had reservations about the play itself, I had very few about the performances. Michael Edwards, in the central and extremely difficult role of Ruby, carefully revealed the vulnerability behind Ruby’s tough exterior. His performance was superbly seconded by a touchingly real and beautifully nuanced performance from Oliver Lynes as his boyfriend, Josh. Stephanie Willson was just perfect as the warm-hearted Angie, and James El-Sharawy a suitably cocky Jimmy, though we saw that underneath all the chutzpah, he was really just a nice kid who wanted to be liked. Neither Nigel Barber as Frank nor Rhys Jennings as Danny let the side down, though they both had less to work with, their characters less finely drawn.

     

    Ultimately, though, what sounded like a nice idea never quite came off.

     

    A Hard Rain plays at Above The Stag until March 30th.

     

    Visit: http://www.abovethestag.com

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Gay Naked Play, Above The Stag

    ★★★ | The Gay Naked Play, Above The Stag

    Dan (Alexander Hulme) is director of the Integrity Players, a small off off Broadway group of players dedicated to “great art”. The company also consists of his loving (and very pregnant) wife Amanda (Stacy Sobieski) and their friend and leading actor Harold (Lucas Livesey). They have lofty ambitions and a staunch refusal to compromise , but they have one problem. Tiny audiences. And when their sole and major backer, who just happens to be Amanda’s Machiavellian mother Imelda (Ellen Verenieks) withdraws her support, they have an even greater problem. No money. What are they going to do?

    Enter Eddie Rossini (Christopher Woodley) and his two cronies, T.Scott (Robert Hannouch) and Edonis (Toby Joyce). Eddie proposes a trashy homoerotic stage version of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” starring porn star Kit Swagger (Matthew Ferdenzi). It’s a sure fire commercial hit, but will the Integrity Players give in to financial pressure and in so doing lose their integrity? I’m not going to give the game away, but I think we can all guess the answer to that one.

    Adam Bell’s play is a witty and often hilarious comment on the eternal conundrum of artistic compromise; popularity versus art. The writing itself is often really clever, abounding in quips and one-liners that wouldn’t have been out of place in an episode of “Will and Grace”.

    My problem was more with the execution. Director Andrew Beckett has allowed too much of the play to be played on one level, with actors shamelessly mugging and playing too many of their lines out front. The often hilarious antics of T.Scott and Edonis would have benefited from a greater contrast with their boss, Rossini, but he too was encouraged to overplay much of the comedy, which resulted in a lack of contrast. Surely underplaying the role would have made it even funnier. It’s a shame, because the play is a lot of fun, and I feel sure that this cast had it in them to deliver a much more multi-faceted performance.

    That said, the audience on opening night enjoyed themselves enormously, and nobody was complaining about Matthew Ferdenzi getting his kit off more than once. Maybe it will settle down a bit in the next few performances.

    The Gay Naked Play is on at Above The Stags until 16th Feb 2014