Lloyd Edy Photography
Set in the 1980s at a boys school in suburban north London, this is a coming-of age story told by Mark (Clive Gilson), 17 years old and infatuated with the gorgeous ‘new boy’ Barry. They become best friends, so we are told, yet never shown. It is more dramatic précis than play. The script often lapses in to what might make good stand-up comic routine, were it delivered by comedians – though Nicole Franco as the French teacher Mrs Mumford almost steals the show with her classroom outburst.
Mark, sexually confused and incompetent (at one point he punches a girl in the vagina and appallingly this is presented as an hilarious incident), gets his twisted vicarious thrills by setting his new best friend up with girls. But when Barry falls for Mrs Mumford’s mid-life crisis, the friendship turns toxic with Mark’s sexual jealousy and scheming.
Gilson comes across as far too knowing, too introspective, even unambiguous in his sexuality. The result is an unloveable, rather poisonous, Iago-like character, but with machinations too puerile to admire. There is little cherisable feeling worth savouring here, compared to such sensitive works as A Beautiful Thing or The History Boys.
After Mrs Mumford comes to her senses and breaks off the liaison, to keep close, Mark pursues Barry’s sister, only to find (in what is a joke more symmetrical than is plausible) that Barry was (hey presto!) gay all along and (without his best friend catching on) is in a physical and loving relationship with his brother Dan. They’re a palatable version of a Jerry Springer Show guest family, at least until they start bickering on stage, Mark seething with self-loathing homophobia.
A superficial romp, often crass, it fails to address the core problem, which is that censorious categorising of sexual orientation by society creates unnatural pressures.
