Paul T Davis reviews Gayboys at Summerhall at Edinburgh Fringe 2022.
Photo: Daniel Hughes Gayboys
Summerhall
Edinburgh Fringe
1 Star
There were and are many good LGBTQ performances on the Fringe, and they are getting quite a diverse audience. Unfortunately, this was the weakest I saw. Two gay men pose, perform a range of routines and lip sync for the audience’s pleasure. I can see that it’s a movement piece that comments on the emptiness of a lot of gay culture, the shopping, the looks, the stereotyping from the mainstream media. The problem is that the piece ends much as it began, and there is very little development.
A movement piece without text, the lip syncing is quite awful, and they never change their facial expressions, looking as bored with the material as I and my companions were. The movement is repetitive, and the music is much of the bland stuff we get everywhere. Apart from one interesting sequence when the dance to The Fairy-tale of New York by the Pogues. Here was the opportunity for something different, but the “Irish” dancing is limited, and the chance to give us a much more romantic interpretation was missed. They also don’t challenge the word “faggot” in the lyrics, possibly a comment on acceptance of it. It’s a piece that may have benefitted from some actual words.
Perhaps as a comment on fashionistas, the men perform in white “gym kit” and perhaps their trainers are so battered as a comment on obsession with shoes. There’s also a disparity between their abilities, they are not equal in abilities, with many a sideways glance before moving at the same time. It’s a shame as I could see what they were trying to do, but it needs a clearer, firmer and a more adventurous approach to convince.
Aug 18-21, 23-28
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Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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