Stage: Make the yuletide gay

The Fit Prince
Who Gets Switched on in the Square in the Frosty Castle the Night Before (Insert Public Holiday Here)
writers, directors, actors Linus Karp & Joseph Martin
video guests Tove Lo, Sebastian Croft, Malte Gardinger, Joshua Whitehouse, Misia Butler, Yshee Black, Kate Butch, Geri Allen, Julia Bender
music Leland • choreography Sam Carlyle
design Stella Backman • puppets Hugh Purves
sound Kate Marlais • lighting James Appleby
King's Head Theatre, Islington • 2.Dec.25-3.Jan.26 ★★★★

Awkward Productions brings their latest Fringe hit to London, appropriately during panto season, and it's a riotously camp show that chaotically plays with the traditions of holiday movies and all things Scandinavian. The cast features two gifted actors, plus a harried stage manager, a raft of sparky video performances and several up-for-it audience members, whose dialog appears on screens just as they need to say it. As the show spirals through its deliberately silly plot and messy improvised moments on-stage, the show becomes increasingly absurd and very, very funny.

As it opens, the king of Swedonia has died, and Crown Prince Elian (Linus Karp) can only inherit the kingdom if he marries before Christmas. But he hasn't yet met the man of his dreams. Nevertheless, time is short, so while Elian interviews eligible princes, the palace hires top New York baker Aaron Butcher (Joseph Martin) to make the wedding cake. As they meet-cute, clash, connect and fall out, Elian and Aaron of course are falling in love. Aaron also convinces Elian to leave the castle and explore his country, and they discover an orphanage in need of royal assistance. Meanwhile, the prince's doppelgänger (an audience member) is making a nefarious power move.

Along the way, we also get a raucous concert by national-treasure popstars BAAB, performing a medley of hilarious pastiche hits, from The Loser Gets Nothing to the anthemic Movement King. Yes, this show spins gleefully out of control at every turn, while the engaging Karp and Martin miraculously keep things on track. Alongside their lead roles, they play a variety of amusing side characters, including the female BAAB singers (audience members play the guys) and a couple of puppet characters that have enormous personalities (orphanage director Gerta McMurder is iconic). Meanwhile, starry guests chime in on video screens. To add to the surrealism, the audience member playing the doppelgänger in our performance was Sebastian Croft (Heartstopper), leading to some amusing romantic interaction with himself on video.

Of course, all of this is resolutely queer, with some surprisingly sweet romantic beats alongside the madcap nuttiness. Dialog is packed with witty wordplay and meta-gags, while mercilessly poking fun at Swedishness from saunas to Ikea. Original songs written by Leland are hilariously epic. And the story has a lot of fun subverting the usually strait-laced nature of Christmas romantic comedies. All of this plays out with a slapstick sensibility that will make each performance a different experience. With its rather abruptly tidy ending, the thin narrative even wraps up with a point about the place for a monarchy in the modern world. But we're too busy laughing and cheering to worry about that.

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photos by Dave Bird • 8.Dec.25

Stage: I wanna live forever

Fame Wh*re
writer-director Tom Ratcliffe
performer-lyricist Gigi Zahir
producer Sarah Allen
set Alys Whitehead
lighting Hugo Dodsworth
King's Head Theatre, Islington • 5-29.Oct.22

Cleverly riffing on the idea that today's youth believe that they deserve to be famous, this one-person show bristles with huge ideas relating to social media and reality television. And while it centres around a hilarious drag act, with a constant barrage of razor-sharp punchlines, it's ultimately a remarkably dark story that spirals into a series of painful emotions. Most importantly, writer Tom Ratcliffe never tries to elicit the audience's sympathy.

That job is left to performer Gigi Zahir, aka Crayola the Queen, who plays Becky Biro with an entitled sense of desperation. Becky knows that she will be a huge star, and that there's no way she won't land a spot on the hot reality competition show Drag Factor. In fact, her life can't be complete without this expected triumph. So it's galling to her that her friend and arch-rival Cindy has achieved that stardom without her. Becky has worked herself to the bone to be a success, and she's not going to be held back by her still-small number of social media followers. She has a plan to fix this, as long as it doesn't backfire.

Zahir bounds around the stage delivering earnest pleas to her followers, while offering cynical asides to the audience that reveal her deep insecurities. Although since it's in performed the round, there are a few long stretches where we're looking at the back of her huge blue wig. It's a full-bodied performance, complete with costume changes, and Zahir's boldest work is in scenes in which Becky's insincerity and self-loathing are on full display.

Becky is delusional about her importance in the world, and her friends aren't very loyal, including both Cindy and Becky's trans drag-king boyfriend Chris. These and other characters (all played by Zahir) appear on video projections that cleverly recreate FaceTime calls and a Zoom hearing of a drag council that determines Becky's fate.

In a brisk hour, Ratcliffe's script adeptly punctures the intense pressure wannabe influencers inflict on themselves about their social media status, veering from the highs of going viral to the lows of vicious trolling. To many young people, followers are the ultimate currency, and expectations are often unrealistic. There are also pointed references to cancel culture, online sex work, transphobia and violent assaults. 

Thankfully, the tone is lightened by a series of hilariously lacerating jokes and riotous pastiche songs like the bouncy Cheese Is Lovely, which Becky notes is, like her, both delicious and nutritious. So while we're hugely entertained, it's the complexity and depth of the material that leaves us with something to think about. 

photos by Charles Flint • 11.Oct.22

Stage: Grappling with intimacy

Undetectable
by Tom Wright
dir Rikki Beadle-Blair
with Lewis Brown, Freddie Hogan
King's Head Theatre, Islington • 12.Feb-7.Mar.20

Taking a complex look at the difference between intimacy and sex, this provocative two-hander draws the audience into a constantly shifting dialog about the nature of connection. The fact that it's a gay couple adds several additional textures, but the topic has a remarkable universality that anyone can identify with. It also helps that the spiralling conversation includes moments that are warm, funny, sexy, wrenching and emotionally engaging.

Bradley and Lex (Brown and Hogan) have been going out for three months, and both are feeling that it's time to have sex for the first time. But each has issues from his past that are causing him to pause. These relate to feelings surrounding safer-sex and HIV, drugs and alcohol, past relationships and self-doubt, all of which come out as they talk to each other, taking turns on the offensive and defensive while also finding common ground. This includes an extended flashback for each man: Bradley revisiting his wildly drug-fuelled party days and Lex remembering a tragedy from his romantic past.

Sustaining a conversation over 90 minutes without a break is no mean feat, and director Beadle-Blair adeptly switches things up constantly, keeping these guys in motion. The stage is a raised bed in the middle of the theatre, surrounded by the audience. These two guys climb on it, run around it, hide behind it as they get into and out of their clothing and the bedding, revealing and obscuring themselves from each other. Clever lighting and music add to the atmosphere, never telling the audience what to think or feel but highlighting the issues these men are grappling with. And Wright's script never moralises at all, which is refreshing considering the potent themes.

Both Brown and Hogan deliver remarkably wrenching performances that evoke a wide range of emotions, from playful tenderness to full-throttle screaming, without ever becoming overwrought. Because the audience is so close to the actors, this kind of underplaying is essential to maintain authenticity, and both men create remarkably private moments surrounded by a crowd of observers. Their performances are also full-bodied, both physically and emotionally, often leaving them (and the audience) sweaty and out of breath. This makes the connection between them powerfully real, with genuine ripples of doubt about where the relationship is headed, offering some proper suspense in the narrative. So we both empathise and root for them, layering our own feelings and opinions into the story to bring it to life in unexpected ways. Which of course leaves us with a lot to think about after the lights come up.

15.Feb.20

Stage: More than a game

World’s End
by James Corley • dir Harry Mackrill
with Tom Milligan, Mirlind Bega, Patricia Potter, Nikolaos Brahimllari
King's Head Theatre, Islington  • 27.Aug-21.Sep.19

This world premiere drama has a powerful emotional kick as it sets a darkly personal story against some pointed period events. The political angles of the plot sometimes feel a little overpowering, but James Corley's play is brought to vivid life by the talented cast and crew at the intimate King's Head Theatre, which always punches above its weight.

It opens in late 1998, as 19-year-old Ben (Milligan) and his mother Viv (Potter) move into the World's End estate in Chelsea. They've had a life shifting from place to place, and Ben is an emotional wreck as a result, frightened by his own shadow while Viv indulges his fears and allows him to hide with his videogame console, plus some secret dial-up internet browsing. Their new neighbours are widower Ylli (Brahimllari) and his 19-year-old son Besnik (Bega), who arrived in Britain years ago as refugees from Kosovo. Besnik is a lively, friendly kid who seems determined to bring Ben out of his jittery shell, and they bond as they play Ben's new videogame Zelda. Besnik is gay, something his father still struggles to accept, and the deeply closeted Ben is drawn to his confidence and relaxed openness over the next eight months as their lives change momentously.

The way these four people circle around each other is fascinating, and very easy to identify with. Viv may be far too dismissive of anything serious, pushing it into the background and hoping it goes away as she focusses on an imagined future. And Ylli is the opposite, unable to let go of his past and get on with his life. Their story arcs are powerful because of the ways they struggle to cope with their own issues. Corley's script never quite seems sure what to do with them, leaving chunks of their journeys off the stage. Still, Potter is simply wonderful, a bundle of repressed emotions and selfish urges. And Brahimllari has terrific presence as a proud man who feels wronged by the tragedies around him.

But this is actually Ben's story, and the excellent, compelling Milligan fills each scene with nervous energy, stuttering and hesitating, and very slowly coming out of his shell as his connection with Besnik develops into a rather sweet romance. The magnetic Bega maintains Besnik's swagger all the way through, subtly shifting as he quietly falls for Ben. Where their story goes is rather tough and sometimes jarring, both because of events in their lives and the way Corley's narrative skips over some key moments. But the final scene is deeply moving, mainly for what it says about how people from very different backgrounds can connect on a profound level.

Photos by Bettina Adela

Shadows on the Stage: It's not about sex

F**king Men
by Joe DiPietro • dir Mark Barford
with Richard De Lisle, August Ohlsson, Liam Darby
King's Head Theatre, Islington • 16.May-2.Jun.18

Tony-winning playwright Joe DiPietro's provocatively titled play comes back to the King's Head Theatre, where it first premiered in 2009. Based on Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde (1897), it's a series of encounters between 10 characters, this time with a cast of three performing multiple roles. Ostensibly about sex, the play is actually an astute exploration of masculinity and culture, grappling with expectations, sexuality, monogamy and trust. It's a beautifully written piece that continually surprises the audience with its astute observations, never becoming preachy despite touching on pungent issues like relational fidelity, closeted celebrities, safe sex and HIV.

Each actor plays three or four roles, switching accents and attitudes so the audience can keep up. Scenes unfold as encounters between two men who discuss and negotiate the terms of sex between them - as a hooker and his john, as partners dealing with relationship issues, as a porn star and a phone-app hook-up, as a playwright and a big Hollywood actor, as a TV presenter and a rent boy. Most of these may end up with some sort of sexual activity, but the real point is that none of these men is quite sure of the rules of combat, as it were. All are a little deceptive even as they are yearning for a connection and hoping for something lasting.

All three actors are excellent. The veteran of the cast, De Lisle has appeared in previous productions and brings an easy authenticity to each role, shifting dramatically between characters without even needing to change costume. Newcomers Ohlsson and Darby both bring distinctive jolts of energy to the production in their various roles, revealing telling details that engage the audience even with more prickly characters. The way the scenes weave together into an overarching narrative is riveting, coming full circle to end on a note that's revelatory without having a specific message. But the play touches on so many deeply personal topics that each person in the audience will see him or herself on-stage while pondering issues that used to seem obvious.