DANCING WITH THE MINOTAUR

Theatre – 5th May 2008 at 15:00 (60 mins)

The start of a free festival of New Irish Writing on every weekend during the Festival in The George at 3pm. Dancing With The Minotaur’ by Max Hafler (Galway) is a gripping tale of a man and a woman trapped in a confused marriage where the … (click to read more)

THE EYES OF BABYLON

Drama – 5th May (19:45), 6th May (19:45), 7th May (19:45), 8th May (19:45), 9th May (19:45), 10th May (15:00, 19:45)

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Lance Corporal Jeff Key, United States Marine, used Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ to eyewitness to the world the wrongs of US Policy in Iraq. Key came out on click to read more)

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KNOTTY TOGETHER

Opera – 5th May (20:00), 6th May (20:00), 7th May (20:00), 8th May (20:00), 9th May (20:00), 10th May (20:00)

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Boy meets boy, boy loves boy, boy marries boy and then what? They sing about it! This irreverent comic opera from Canada is gloriously romantic except no one has to die while negotiating through love, sex and marriage. Can Xanford and Jimmy … (click to read more)

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LIGHTNING STRIKES

Drama – 5th May (20:00), 6th May (20:00), 7th May (20:00), 8th May (20:00), 9th May (20:00), 10th May (15:00, 20:00)

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Celebrated Director Patrick Wilde brings the world premiere of Matt Ian Kelly’s play to Dublin. Good looking Tom wears the right clothes, goes to the right clubs, has friends who support … (click to read more)

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TRUMAN CAPOTE

Drama – 5th May (20:00), 6th May (20:00), 7th May (20:00), 8th May (20:00), 9th May (20:00), 10th May (15:00, 20:00)

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No one looked, or sounded, like Truman Capote. Bob Kingdom’s portrayal as the brilliant, tortured, adorable and wicked writer of Breakfast At Tiffany’Seand In Cold Blood has spell … (click to read more)

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YESTERDAY, WHEN I WAS YOUNG

Comedy Drama – 5th May (20:00), 6th May (20:00), 7th May (20:00), 8th May (20:00), 9th May (20:00), 10th May (15:00, 20:00)

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Josie Pickering’s outrageous journey from back street housewife to lesbian dominatrix shocked Britain. She escapes her marriage and discovers the secret world of Manchester’s gay … (click to read more)

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BIG SISTER

Drama – 5th May (20:00), 6th May (20:00), 7th May (20:00), 8th May (20:00), 9th May (20:00), 10th May (15:00, 20:00)

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Women in the media imitation or art? Love it or hate it, reality TV is everywhere. How much do we really know about these so-called stars’? How real’ is this reality? A funny, … (click to read more)

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BED DEATH

Drama – 5th May (20:00), 6th May (20:00), 7th May (20:00), 8th May (20:00), 9th May (20:00), 10th May (20:00)

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Four lesbians are going on a Murder Mystery weekend and you have all been invited! Jo is determined that T’s birthday celebrations go off in style, while Debra and Lee struggle with the ghosts of their past together. T is harbouring a dark … (click to read more)

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NIJINSKY’S LAST DANCE

Drama – 5th May (21:30), 6th May (21:30), 7th May (21:30), 8th May (21:30), 9th May (21:30), 10th May (16:30, 21:30)

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Ricardo Melendez is a tour-de-force who takes us on a mesmerizing journey. Nijinsky, the tragic Russian ballet dancer’s sweeping rise to fame and his ultimate decent into madness. … (click to read more)

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BURYING YOUR BROTHER IN THE PAVEMENT

Comedy Drama – 5th May (21:30), 6th May (21:30), 7th May (21:30), 8th May (21:30), 10th May (15:00)

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Tom’s brother Luke is dead, killed by a broken bottle to the neck. They were never friends. It’Sean odd decision to try to bury Luke in the pavement ” at the point where he was … (click to read more)

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SHACKLED

Drama – 5th May (21:30), 6th May (21:30), 7th May (21:30), 8th May (21:30), 9th May (21:30), 10th May (16:30, 21:30)

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Straight strangers, Stu and Alex wake up naked in bed and handcuffed together with no memory of the night before, it all seems very funny except there is no key. They struggle to … (click to read more)

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THE NIGHT FAIRIES

Drama – 5th May (21:30), 6th May (21:30), 7th May (21:30), 8th May (21:30), 9th May (21:30), 10th May (16:30, 21:30)

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250,000 forgotten gays died in Nazi concentration camps. Their persecution continued after the war. Dirk, a young Belgian student was arrested and taken to the German internment camp of Sachsenhausen. The play follows Dirk in a cramped train, … (click to read more)

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BUTCH – A Queen’s Struggle To Become King

Musical Comedy – 5th May (21:30), 6th May (21:30), 7th May (21:30), 8th May (21:30), 9th May (21:30), 10th May (16:30, 21:30)

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This touching and hilarious debut one man show BUTCH A Queen’s Struggle To Become King from the writer of The Gaydar Diaries’. Menno falls head over heels for a closeted, … (click to read more)

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THE GIRLY SIDE OF BUTCH

Musical Comedy – 5th May (21:45), 6th May (21:45), 7th May (21:45), 8th May (21:45), 9th May (21:45), 10th May (16:30, 21:45)

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Priscilla’ comes to Dublin live and direct from Adelaide Australia! Rochelle, Fifi and Vonni 3 Australian TV icons in their hilarious cabaret show. From the hey day of Les … (click to read more)

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THE IRON EYELASHES

Music – 8th May (21:30), 9th May (21:30), 10th May (21:30)

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Travel back in time with Berlin’s hidden legend, drag queen Pieter Stiller via Paris, London and New York through countless dresses, drunken parties, smudged lipstickSeand laddered tights to the moment, Pieter makes a choice that changes his … (click to read more)

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MEMOIRS OF A GAY SHOW

Musical Comedy – 9th May (21:30) and 10th May (21:30)

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West End and Irish Singing starts Paul Monaghan (Phantom of the Opera/Les Mis) joins up with Singer Eoin Cannon and Musical Director David Wray for an evening of music and theatre from these celebrated gay artists. Monaghan (Pageant) Wray … (click to read more)

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CULTURAL SEMINAR

11th May 2008 at 12:00 (180 mins)

This year’s free seminar will be held in the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Trinity College. (12 noon to 3pm including light lunch) Chaired by Dr Eibhear Walshe, proceedings include the Dr Aiden Rogers Memorial Lecture, papers on Eva Gore Booth by … (click to read more)

THE CROWN JEWELS

Drama – 11th May 2008 at 15:00 (70 mins)

The second of the free festival of New Irish Writing in The George. 2007 Oscar Wilde winning playwright Shawn Sturnick and Christiaan Feehan premiere their first collaboration. It’Sean outrageously funny gay play, it’s true it is gayer … (click to read more)

THE STORY OF ZRAZY

Music – 11th May (16:30) and 18th May (16:30)

Performing in The George, Ireland’s leading lesbian duo Carol and Maria give an insight into their successful careers as jazz musicians. How did this duo achieve fame and respect in music in Ireland the story unfolds over two weekends … (click to read more)

BEST MAN

Drama – 12th May (20:00, 20:00), 13th May (20:00), 14th May (20:00), 15th May (20:00), 16th May (20:00), 17th May (15:00, 20:00)

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Childhood friends Eoin and Michael haven’t seen each other in seven years when an unexpected invitation to Michael’s engagement party drops through Eoin’s letter box. How much have … (click to read more)

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CHRISTMAS IN BAKERSFIELD

Comedy Drama – 12th May (20:00), 13th May (20:00), 14th May (20:00), 15th May (20:00), 16th May (20:00), 17th May (15:00, 20:00)

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This is crazy! Les finally meets Mike the man of his dreams. Mike decides to take Les home for the Christmas holidays to Bakersfield, the arm pit of California’ the … (click to read more)

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SOME ARE PEOPLE

Drama – 12th May (20:00), 13th May (20:00), 14th May (20:00), 15th May (20:00), 16th May (20:00), 17th May (15:00, 20:00)

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A beautiful stranger with a mysterious past arrives for the summer in gay resort mecca Provincetown. Soon Lydia’s path crosses with Miss Fitt (aka Tommy) hostess of drag karaoke at the … (click to read more)

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CORPUS CHRISTI

Drama – 12th May (20:00), 13th May (20:00), 14th May (20:00), 15th May (20:00), 16th May (20:00), 17th May (15:00, 20:00)

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Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi retells the Jesus story, with Jesus as a gay man living in 1950′s Corpus Christi, Texas. Opening in 1998 to bomb threatSeand protests, this revival … (click to read more)

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SHORT SHORTSeanD VERY SHORTS

Comedy – 12th May (20:00), 13th May (20:00), 14th May (20:00), 15th May (20:00), 16th May (20:00), 17th May (20:00)

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A NEW INNOVATION OF SHORT PIECES FROM IRELAND AND ABROAD IN ONE DIVERSE PROGRAMME INCLUDING:

BLIND DATE (IRELAND) by Vickey Curtis (World Premiere … (click to read more)

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THE COUNTESS & THE LESBIANS

Drama – 12th May (21:30), 13th May (21:30), 14th May (21:30), 15th May (21:30, 21:30), 16th May (21:30), 17th May (15:00, 21:30)

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Three women are rehearsing a play for the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival today about Countess Markiewicz the titled revolutionary of the Easter Week Rising. Her pacifist … (click to read more)

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CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON BOY

Drama – 12th May (21:30), 13th May (21:30), 14th May (21:30), 15th May (21:30), 16th May (21:30), 17th May (16:30, 21:30)

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This autobiographical play is true. After excommunication, divorce, prostitution and drugs, Steven Fales a sixth-generation Utah Mormon reclaims more than his kidSeand Donny Osmond’ … (click to read more)

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LOVE SCENES

Drama – 12th May (21:30), 13th May (21:30), 14th May (21:30), 15th May (21:30), 16th May (21:30), 17th May (16:30, 21:30)

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A sexy, touching, laugh-out-loud funny look at gay New Yorkers falling in and out of love. Moe Bertram play six characters including a 21 year old hustler falling for his kinky mentor, a … (click to read more)

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DALLIANCES

Drama – 12th May (21:30), 13th May (21:30), 14th May (21:30), 15th May (21:30), 16th May (21:30), 17th May (16:30, 21:30)

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Janet is looking for love. Leo and Janet are friends. Ken is involved with Andy. When Ken meets Leo in a supermarket and they make out in a lift, the lives of the four characters … (click to read more)

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DOWN DANGEROUS ROAD PASSES

Drama – 12th May (21:30), 13th May (21:30), 14th May (21:30), 15th May (21:30), 16th May (21:30), 17th May (16:30, 21:30)

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Carl, the youngest of 3 brothers is to be married today. Ambrose is losing his lover to AIDS while Victor, the eldest, has just left his second failed marriage. Fifteen years to the day they get together and drive out … (click to read more)

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SLIPPING

Drama – 12th May (21:45), 13th May (21:45), 14th May (21:45), 15th May (21:45), 16th May (21:45), 17th May (15:00, 21:45)

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Eli a gay high school senior Eli gets a fresh start in Iowa, after his father dieSeand his abusive lover abandons him but will he seize it or continue his emotionally destructive ways? … (click to read more)

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SINGING OUT FIVE

Music – 16th May (23:00) and 17th May (23:00)

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What is it about gaySeand musical theatre? The divas, the chorus boys, glamour, fun and pathos that makes up the magic of the musical. What is the secret gay code that drew so many a gay generations into the safety and self expression of musical … (click to read more)

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A STINT IN YOUR SPOTLIGHT

Drama – 18th May 2008 at 15:00 (60 mins)

Produced in association with the Gaiety School of Acting students. This final afternoon of the free New Irish Writing festival in The George features Jack Harrison, ex boybander who is washed up at twenty eight. His marriage to Cristal went … (click to read more)

GALA CELEBRATION & AWARDS

Theatre – 18th May 2008 at 19:30 (180 mins)

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Celebrating five years of gay theatre at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival! Join Tony Award winner Terrence Mc Nally, double IFTA award winner Mark O’Halloran, The Dopplegang, Gearoid Farrelly, and lots of … (click to read more

You might well think ‘well ” yippee ”!’, at least Robbie the Reindeer and All Star Family Fortunes are on the other channels. But balletomanes are members of the same race as the rest of us (stretching a point or three) and pay their licence fees, (mostly). Genuine hard-core, and I mean hard-core, balletomanes are usually ten year old girls. But even energetic young ladies of ten may have problems in ‘viewing’ these two shows. By mid- to late-afternoon on December 25, most years, most citizens of the United Kingdom of Sweets (sorry ” Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and the Irish and Belgian people who tune in because their telly is even worse than ours, are in a somnolent state. This ranges from deep sleep to a state of flatulent regret for eating all that grub ‘ and Brussels sprouts. (Why doeSeanybody eat sprouts? Particularly on a great feast day? Is it the last remnants of English Puritanism? They are vile. But I digress ”).

Some people, as noted above, are in the deepest of deep sleep. Great if you’ve a porn DVD. Though young adults should be aware of the fact that ten year old girls can be mulishly stubborn, and quite vicious, if they are prevented from watching ballet on telly. They can, and will, tout¹ to your parents. When they have won the battle of the channel changer they will evince a superior (positively moral) attitude to the carnage and noxious fumes (them bloody Brussels again) around them.

It is worth asking what the television authorities are up to ‘ the last major ballet performance on (UK) telly was in midsummer 2007. It marked the retirement of Darcey Bussell from being a big star in the (British) Royal Ballet. It got a huge audience. The Romeo and Juliet with the charismatic Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo (who is wonderful: this iSean entirely cerebral, detached judgement) will probably fetch enormous audience figures. Why are modern telebroadcasters so nervous about the ballet? It has always gathered very large audiences to telly. At one time ballet popped up about once a month.

What’s the problem? For all the impact Darcey Bussell was allowed to make on television in the course of her career, her retirement performance ought to have been viewed by a handful of viewers. It was viewed by millions, in a ‘multi-channel’ situation where a good audience consists of hundreds of thousands.

The notion that the chaps in ballet are all ” sharp intake of breath ” homoSEXUAL ” can’t really have much to do with the matter. Even television executives must have realised that Gay women and men are not merely not frightening but are actually popular in the Noughties. (As in the Nineties, and the Eighties, despite the Plague, and the best efforts of gabshites like Kelvin MacKenzie and Richard Littlejohn). And most men in ballet actually are not Gay, whether this is a good or bad thing is up to the reader to judge.?üine N Ph l

1 ‘Grass-up, tell tales (possibly suitably garnished with circumstantial evidence – like where your ‘dirty’ DVD* is stored).* This read ‘DD’ before sub-editing ‘ a ‘dirty’ Doctor of Divinity, under your mattress ” yes the bind does truly moggle ”

Frederico Garcia Lorca

Theatre Royal, Stratford East

The above was claimed to be about homosexuality, especially homosexuality in a sexually and socially repressed society. This may be what led the director of the piece to urge on his cast what was basically a great deal of camping about by many players. At one point an Emperor-figure one part Caligula, one part pantomime demon-king strips one of the players. A very pleasing sight it was too, but we were probably meant to be at least slightly shocked by it.

The shock was defused by the player’s partner who was tiresomely camp. He probably should have been sweetly effeminate: it was not hit-off by either the director or player. This over-the-top characterisation did not fit in with the idea of deep repression. (All of the action is really going on inside someone’s sub-conscious).

The Programme claims Lorca was inspired by Surrealist experiments in Paris. He was probably also inspired by the Russian Ballet, especially Nijinsky, and also Nijinska (Vaslav’s sister, Bronislava they were ethnic Poles), and further off, old Klingsor, Richard Wagner. It is by no means inconceivable that he had Hollywood cartoons in mind. Thus, we are presented with lots of people in odd get-ups: headless bodies, surreal two-legged horses cavorting beautifully about ” it is a great pity the horse-heads had all the magic of the average traffic bollard.

The Theatre Royal Stratford East (or ate Bow, to distinguish it from Shakespeare’s birthplace) is a Victorian pile, all curlicues, gold leaf and plush, like Belfast‘s Grand Opera House (and Cirque). It is small, about the size of the Group theatre (an annex to the Ulster Hall), the stage got seriously overpopulated from time to time.

Near the end of the performance someone spoke with a fake-Belfast accent, or a real Belfast accent, with True Brit overtones. Maybe it was meant to be an alienating device.

This is only an impression of the thing: play is too feeble a word to describe it. The Theatre Royal is to be congratulated for staging the work. It is doubtful if it is about anything other than the human condition. But there is no real harm in Gay women and men taking pride in the fact that it was one of us’ who created it.

Se n McGouran

Gay Star (Vol. 2, No. 2) Spring 1989

Ulster Actors Company Belfast Civic Arts Theatre

THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM Graham Reid

Lyric Players Lyric Theatre (Belfast)

The first of these plays is meant to be a savage satire on Encounter Groups (!). This helps to explain why it does not work as a play. Such groups are rare anywhere, especially one would have thought, in Ireland.

The treatment of the Gay sub-theme is very revealing. Roger (who engages in an open power struggle with Suzy, the pseudo-American Group Leader) is a closet case of the first order. Unfortunately such persons do not involve themselves in Encounter Groups. If they did, they would adopt the Chestertonian tactic of hiding leaves in forests. As our reader knows, the best way to draw attention away from one’s unorthodox sexuality is to announce it (loudly) at the earliest opportunity. That way, people are so impressed by one’s honesty / shocked at one’s frankness that they will not refer to it again.

One got the impression that Bernard Farrell had read a lot of smart play scripts but hasn’t actually listened to people talking. Lots of the lines were funny, but not believable. Neither was the hysteria which erupted when Joe Fell, a kind of Lord of Misrule, announces that he has planted a bomb in the room next to the one in which the encounter session is held. No reason is given, come to that, for anybody being there. Who sent them? Why did they go? Did they pay for the privilege?

The acting was superb, the directing wasn’t as obtrusive as Roy Heayberd’s tends to be, the set was extremely simple and effective. It was a good evening’s entertainment. Messrs Farrell and Heayberd (and the UAC has a rather sinister ring to it, doesn’t it?) kept a houseful of customers on the edge of their seats for several hours. That is by no means a despicable achievement. But Mr. Farrell should not be trumpeted as Ireland‘Seanswer to Ibsen, Chekov, and Eugene O’Neill rolled into one.

Graham Reid’s play is better, if only because he has chosen his target better. This time it is the State educational system and its products, murderous morons as Tony the not-terribly-believable central character calls them. Apart from Tony, and some of his speeches, I believed every word every one of the characters said. Including the rather (too?) eloquent Tom Allen, who defends his involvement with the UDA (Ulster Defence Association).

As a result of this conversation, Tony discovers that Roy. a quiet studious boy, has been imprisoned for life, life, life and life. This, and a brush with the hard facts of working-class Loyalist life, determines this rather bland, middle-aged, teacher of English to throw over the teaching and intellectual habits of a life-time) (he suspected boys with pimpleSeand dirty collars grew up to be gunmen).

Needless to say, he is crushed, his colleagues desert him, and the headmaster (a bit too much of a deus ex machina, I felt) humiliates him.

The people in this play are, possibly, cliched, but they become three dimensional by the vibrancy of the language they use. The acting, like that in the Arts’ is superb, rather like a good band in action.

But I have two small complaints. The set is divided into three. The centre is meant to represent the street, the left is the schoolroom cum staffroom, the right is the parlour of the house where Eric, Roy‘s ex-UDA big-noise father lives with Ruby. As most of the action of the play is in the staffroom, this arrangement tends to waste space and give the customers a crick in their collective neck.

And, while I am positive that youths on the periphery of the UDA (Ulster Young Militants) would wear sexy, tight knickers, I am dubious about even a particularly dim one wearing a silver Celtic cross. (I was looking very hard).

Se n McGouran

THIS oddly named play is about James Connolly’s last few hours in the condemned cell. The greater part of the talk: – there is very little action other than Connolly (Tim Loane) hobbling about the cell or being forced to crawl about it by two warders.

These latter are given to high talk, gnomic utteranceSeand aimless cruelty. Given that “Connolly” appears for much of the play to be deep in untroubled sleep one might feel more sorry for their plight than for Connolly’s: he is going to fulfil his destiny. They represent a world that is passing, at least that is what they say – at great length.

Eagleton has in the past in Saint Oscar and the novel SaintSeand Scholars messed about with chronology. Here he has Connolly receiving letters from one VI Lenin in charge in Moscow – more than a year before he arrived there! and from WB Yeats, offering to become “Fuhrer”. Yeats’s ghost is treated to severe abuse; he deserves it for calling Thomas Moore a “cringing firbolg” .

There’s a lot of surface glitter in this play, but little depth. Sitting through it does not enhance one’s life. I felt a riot coming on! Eagleton insults nearly all the rest of the 1916 leaders, Pearse coming in for a good deal of condemnation – naturally enough. (Not to mention some rather off-colour remarks about his alleged sexuality, pluSean unpleasant pantomime presumably sanctioned by Eagleton and the producer Pam Brighton which I found offensive and gratuitously anti-Gay). Although it is all from the Warders, McDaid [Dan Gordon], implicitly a Prod, and Mather [Anthony Brophy] a genuine cringing firbolg, Connolly never putSeanother point of view. McDaid is given a fair number of good speeches attacking what the insurgents in Dublin were up to in Easter Week.

This play says more about Eagleton, than does about James Connolly. A piece in the programme describes Connolly as ” . . .Ireland’s greatest socialist theorist and organiser.”. At the end of the action Connolly simply vanishes, not unlike a certain [other] JC, who is supposed to have vanished from a tomb around about Easter.

This play was written for people who can spot the smart- alecky references peppering the text, who may be the same people who roared at every crude word and gesture at the OMAC. It’s a bad play, the language while quite funny in parts, does not illuminate anything. The production was pared down to the minimum, throwing all weight onto the text, which collapsed under the pressure into “mere words”.

Eagleton the lapsed Marxist attempted to make his play relevant to a living political situation by having them performed on the Falls Road – and Hampstead, among other places. Judging by the deafening silence after the circus left town, the Falls wasn’t impressed; neither was I. The constant references to homosexuality in Eagleton’s texts is nearer in spirit to the semi-pornographic sensationalist pulp fiction of the 1940s, ’50Seand early ’60s than to the post-Gay Liberation idea of a “Gay sensibility”.

[Sean McGouran]

The poster, and other publicity material, for this play showed two very attractive, shirtless, young men. It probably attracted a fair number of young (and not so young) women, and the odd Gay man to Hackney Empire’s (www.hackneyempire.com) Studio theatre. I am an odd Gay man, but was attracted to the Studio (prepare for a steep climb) by the fact that Basic is set in a prison cell. The play is a ‘two-hander’. ASeany consumer of Her Majesty’s Prison services will know, two to a cell is five star accommodation. Cells designed in the middle of Victoria’s reign for one (usually male) person, are now three-, or even ‘foured-up’.

This is a very minor cavil, there are times in the course of the action where a third voice would be useful, but generally Lynn Greenwood’s script stands up. The performers, Femi Oyeniran (Charlie) and Chris Streeks (Ash) were more than competent. Femi Oyeniran had genuine star quality. You just want to look at him. (Fair enough, he is by anybody’s standards, a very handsome man. But there’s more to his ‘presence’ than that.)

The format of the play is: Charlie, a cocky, functionally illiterate, youngster is ‘twoed-up’ with the mature Ash, the product of a Public (meaning private) School education and of fundamentalist parents. His life, he tells Charlie, as their relationship warms into friendship, has been a loveless series disasters.

They share things, an education (learning to read) for Charlie, and a breath of energy and life (and some muscle in clashes with hard chaw cons) for Ash.

This explodes into tragedy when Charlie returns from a visit by a gangster from his locality, who was a school friend. And who is trying to get Charlie in on his lucrative drugs racket.

He imparts other information. Ash is a ‘nonce’, a ‘sex-case’. He is alleged to have had sex with a fifteen year old boy. The validity of this accusation is left open in the script, which makes the result that much stronger.

There is also an element of jealousy in the accusation. The boy in question was a brilliant student in a school where most kids (like Charlie) were counting the days until they could escape. Ash, his teacher, lavished time and trouble (and money for theatre tickets, among other things) on the person he is accused of forcing sex on.

After a confrontation Charlie beats Ash up – and in the process kills him. The character, a hope-to-be rap artist, raps out his future: a lifetime behind bars. Femi Oyeniran, looks at this point as if his soul has left his body. This was followed by a deafening silence on the part of the audience – then genuine, heartfelt, applause.

It would be unfair to imply that Chris Streeks was a cypher in this drama. His was, in some ways, a more difficult job than that of Femi Oyeniran. His character was, in essence,a buttoned-up bourgeois Englishmen, while Charlie (well fleshed-out as a character) is a known ‘type’.

There were some apparent oddities in the script, Charlie’s fluency in sending-up Ash’s vocabulary might seem unlikely, but suffering a modern British education does not necessarily kill off a feel for language. Another is the fact that Chris Streeks is taller and bulkier that Femi Oyeniran, though the younger character Charlie is more ‘physical’. His first action on entering the cell is a number of press-ups.

But Ash’s passivity rings true – his miserable, loveless life (and possibly guilt) has rotted his soul. He might even welcome death.

Sitting a few rows back in a virtually non-raked auditorium, I did not see a lot of the fight, but Haruka Kurada (www.harukakuroda.com) organised the beating very well. Lu Firth’s design was very good, but despite the smallness of the Studio did not really convey the claustrophobic feeling of a cell. I liked Dinah Mullen’s soundSeand Adam Crosthwaite’s lighting, though even in bright sunshine cells are not inviting, being painted with end-of-line colours. Vomit yellow and turd brown being the prevailing decor.

The Director was Franko Figueiredo (also something of a mentor to Lynn Greenwood), the Assistant Director is Gael Le Cornec (www.gaellecornec.com). They are both Brazilian, and their London Embassy is involved with StoneCrabs which is Brazilian in origin being based on the principles of Augusto Boal and others. Jo Strickland is Stage Manager.

Incidentally, neither Charlie nor Ash ‘disrobe’ in the course of the play. Another image used in StoneCrab’s publicity has them looking away from the potential audience, presumably into their cells (their souls?). It might have been more apt publicity – but would have discouraged people from coming to see Basic. ‘Photography’ is attributed to Marian Alonso

Basic is a well-acted, and produced play, there are some slightly creaky moments in the text. This is not a major criticism. The thing would probably work much better as a television drama.

[Se n McGouran]

The play’s title is everything you could and would say, Jonathan Harvey has summed up the hopes of teenagers in a working class situation in inner London.

No one seeing the play could come away without the realisation that young Gay people have the same needSeand aspirations as everyone else – love (both spiritual and physical), a sense of belonging, and the need for emotional and physical security.

Beautiful Thing is a joy to watch. The script is sensitive and funny; and the acting of all five actors is superb. Jamie (Mark Letherer) and Ste (Shane Dingwall) bring a freshnesSeand spontaneity to their roles which is a job to behold. Leah (Spohie Stanton), Amelia Brown (Sandra) and Tony (Richard Bonneville) are the other cast members, and the play owes its presence and vitality no less to them. Richar’s “right on” characterisation makes very one of us oldies cringe when he appears, but you still can’t take your eyes away.

For those who saw Beautiful Thing it will stay fresh in their memories for many months: perhaps years; to come. For those who for whatever reason didn’t get to it, do try if it appears again – you won’t be sorry.

[Terry McFarlane