Tezza's Theatre Place

PBGSTUDIOS: Ashley Byam, Keeran Blessie, Declan Spaine. People go to university for many reasons. For the majority, the main one is to get a degree and, following that, a good job. However, along with the educational aspects, university is also a place to make life-long friendships and maybe even meet your one true love. But what happens afterwards? A question that is addressed in Jake Brunger’s  Four Play  at the Above the Stag Theatre. Seven and a half years after having met, and fallen in love, at university, Pete (Keeran Blessie) and Rafe (Ashley Byam) are still together and still in love. They have a lovely apartment and live the perfect DINK life – wearing designer clothes, shopping at Sainsbury’s, drinking Chablis and enjoying snacks containing sun dried tomatoes. Life couldn’t be any better for these two. But there is a niggling doubt that has wormed its way into their relationship. After over seven years together, Rafe and Peter couldn’t have a firmer relationshi...

Tickle the Musical Peter Davies How do you feel about tickling or being tickled?  After all, as babies and children, tickling is a part of life, and many a youngster has been reduced to a helpless mess of giggling by a good old tickle. As you get older, there comes a point where it is not necessarily felt as appropriate to tickle or be tickled. However, if you were to Google the words “ competitive endurance tickling ” you will find a plethora of websites covering the subject. You will also find details of a 2016 documentary by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve. The reason I’m talking about this is because the documentary has now spawned a new musical by Chris Burgess called  Tickle  which I recently saw at the King’s Head Theatre. In a boring, run-down town, Chris (James McDowall) and Callum (Ben Brooker) are bemoaning their lives.  Chris is hoping to get into university while Curtis has nothing more exciting to look forward to than night shift at a local k...

Occasionally in the theatre, a show is just a show. The audience, and especially the reviewer, can sit back, relax and enjoy the production solely for its own sake without having to think too deeply about plot-lines, sub-text, or any of those other things. In fact, sometimes you just have to give yourself over to absolute pleasure. And this was definitely the case last night at the King’s Head Theatre where I experienced the awesome  Schlong Song . Woody Shticks burst onto the stage in a blaze of light, sound and really skimpy ‘Daisy Dukes’ and delivers an amazing talk on gay life in general and his in particular. From his first stirrings of knowing he was different from the other boys at his ultra-conservative Christian school, through to an amazing and very emotional encounter with a closeted man in Eastern Europe – an area not renowned for its tolerance of man on man action. Woody does not hold back, both physically and descriptively in connecting with the audience and wh...

Fiona Marr as Grace Lancaster in SOUTHERN BELLES. Credit Scott Rylander. Tennessee Williams was an outstanding playwright whose shows have become hits the world over. However, there is one of his plays ( And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens ) which is not only rarely performed but, due to its subject matter was never performed during Williams’ own lifetime. Luckily, the King’s Head Theatre has decided to bring the play out of the theatrical closet as part of its Queer Season in a production of two of Williams’ one-act plays joined together under the title  Southern Belles . First up was  Something Unspoken . Miss Cornelia Scott (Annabel Leventon) is an ageing spinster and daughter of the south who lives in a wonderful house that she shares with her servants and her secretary/companion of 15 years Grace (Fiona Marr). The two ladies have cohabited for so long that you would think there are no secrets between them but, today, there is tension in the air. Not only is C...

Of all the things members of the LGBT+ community go through in their lives, probably the hardest is the first time they decide to ‘come out’. Everyone has their own story to tell, and they are all unique in some respect. My own involved the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question, a famous male singer, and a very perceptive elderly lady. Actor, magician, theatre and opera director Freddie Brook has spent the past few years collecting some of these stories and turning them into a one-man verbatim show called  Just Don’t Shout it from the Rooftops  which he has recently been performing at the King’s Head in Islington. Over the course of the roughly 45-minute run, Freddie brings to life a range of individual coming out stories and demonstrates the many different approaches both the outee and the recipients of the information take to the news. There is the young lad who, in the words of his less than sympathetic parents, ‘ruined the family holiday’, the soldier who took on a re...

June is world-wide Pride Month and here in London, we end the month with the start of London Pride week, which culminates in the annual Pride in London parade. This year, my London Pride week started with a visit to the Southwark Playhouse where  Full Disclosure Theatre  were putting on a new writing night of eight short plays revealing the naked and entertaining truths about LGBT+ life. The evening started off with  Converting The Preached To  by Niall Urquhart, directed by Louis Catliff. As we took our seats we were welcomed by our Preacher (Linus Karp) who shook hands and said hello to as many as possible. He then proceeded to introduce us to Robert (Ikky Elyas), a new member of our gay conversion therapy group who started to explain his reasons for joining much to the consternation of the Preacher and apparent delight of Dennis (Pedro de Senna) a normally quiet member of the group who blossoms under Robert’s influence. Converting The Preached To  was ...

Liv Alexander, Georgia Bradshaw and Beccy Lane, courtesy of Tom Grace For a man fast approaching his late fifties, you wouldn’t think a tale of teenage angst set in an American Roman Catholic boarding school would be that interesting. But you would be wrong, as one of my favourite shows ever is  Bare: A Pop Opera . So, I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when asked to review the latest version of this show as it opens at The Vaults Theatre. At St Cecilia’s Boarding School, the pupils are celebrating a mass on the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s a pretty normal service, worthy but dull, and as the priest (Mark Jardine) preaches, most of the teenage congregation find their attention drifting. As with all children on the brink of adulthood, there is much to occupy their minds. This is particularly true of altar boy Peter (Daniel Mack Shand) who is hiding two terrible secrets. Not only is he gay, but he is in love, and enjoying carnal relations with his roommate, and St Cecilia’s r...

Riot Act – Credit Dawson James It’s Pride Month and that means that London is full of building flying rainbow flags and the theatre scene is gayer than ever with a plethora of LGBT+ themed shows hitting the stages of the capital. Some are just OK, some are good and a small number are absolutely awesome. I was lucky enough to get to experience the latter type of show as Alexis Gregory’s  Riot Act  arrived at the Arcola Theatre, This one-man show is a verbatim portrayal of conversations Alexis has had with three gay men, whose stories are told in three separate monologues over the sixty-minute run. First, we have Michael-Anthony Nozzi, one of the few remaining people who were present at the Stonewall riots in 1969. Michael paints a graphic picture not just of the Stonewall Inn itself but also the area around Greenwich Village. This completely changed my perception of the events of June 28th. Over the course of the monologue I learnt so much about the event, its background an...

AFTERGLOW – Jesse Fox, Danny Mahoney, Sean Hart photo Darren Bell. Being honest, an open relationship wouldn’t work for me. However, I have friends who have the ability to keep sex and their relationship separate and really enjoy both. Whilst I agree that is fine in theory, for me, that separation would not be that easy and emotions always become involved somehow. In many respects, this is the issue that is at the heart of S. Asher Gelman’s play  Afterglow  at the Southwark Playhouse. Josh (Sean Hart) and his husband Alex (Danny Mahoney) are enjoying life. They live in a nice apartment in New York, have jobs they both, on the whole, enjoy and are having a baby together. Sexually, they have an open relationship with only one rule – no overnighters – and are happy to play together or separately. When we first meet them, they are having a passionate threesome with twenty-something masseur Darius (Jessie Fox), an event that all three of them really enjoy. In fact, Josh enjo...

Elegies Company by Mark Senior PR To Southwark’s Union Theatre for a new production of a very unusual show with one of the most intriguing titles I’ve seen for quite a while,  Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens . This is not a play, nor is it a conventional musical, instead  Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens  is a song cycle with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. It centres around the  NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt  and follows the individual stories of various people who have died from AIDS and have a patch on the quilt. Each story is different and very personal, but also really relatable for the audience. With one exception – Ailsa Davidson who plays Judith – the entire cast (Aidan Harkins, Althea Burey, Calum Gulvin, Charlie McCullagh, Chris Cahill, Fraser Leigh Green, Jackie Pulford, Jade Chaston, Jade Marvin, Kristine Kruse, Marcus Ayton, Matthew Grove, Michiel Janssens, Paige Fenlon and Rhys Ta...

Matthew Baldwin Queereteria TV – Credit PBG STUDIOS Ever had a night at the theatre where, by the end, you’ve thoroughly enjoyed the show but ultimately are totally confused about what you have seen? Well, I had just such a night at the Above the Stag theatre which is currently playing host to  Queereteria TV . Thanks to an accident whilst doing something interesting with a senior member of the royal family, Lady Domina Bizarre (Matthew Baldwin) has caused the planet to be pretty much decimated. Now, thanks to her actions, there is only one television channel available, funnily enough, run by and starring Lady Dominina. The channel comes from an old gay cruising club called Queereteria. Lady Domina’s show is called ‘Club Bizarre’ and, as well as the lady herself is presented by people she is control of including Rupert (Peter Straker) and the former celebrity singer Torsten (Andy Bell) now over 100 and locked in a cryogenic chamber as the show’s resident feature. But the Lady’...

(c) Nick Rutter. From left to right_ Freddie Hogan, Lewis Brown What does the word ‘undetectable’ mean to you? If you were a fan of detective stories, it’s a crime that cannot be solved. If you are a reader of some of our more right-wing papers, then we are talking about illegal aliens living in the country under the radar. If you are a gay man, then it is something far more serious that will affect your life forever.  Undetectable is also the title of Tom Wright’s new one-act play which is receiving its world premiere at the King’s Head Theatre. As far as gay relationships go, Bradley (Lewis Brown) and Lex (Freddie Hogan) are very unusual. Despite dating for three months, this twenty-something couple have not actually slept together yet. And their relationship is going from strength to strength. For instance, this very night, Lex has introduced Bradley to his, rather judgy, housemates, something he has been loathe to do with other men that he has gone out with. So, tonight is...

2018 Bleach – Paris Fringe The Vault Festival continues to amaze and entertain with a whole range of shows and productions that cover every taste and interest. Virtually everything I have seen in the years I have been covering the Vault Festival has been somewhere between good and awesome – in fact, only one show comes to mind that I really didn’t like. However, occasionally there is a production that totally takes your breath away and leaves you with a profound sense of seeing – and maybe participating in – something exceptionally special. A case in point is Dan Ireland-Reeves’  Bleach  which runs at the festival until the 10th February. Tyler Everett is a lad who has a degree under his belt and has, like so many others, come to London to make his fortune. Unfortunately for Tyler, his life is not like Dick Whittington’s and he is currently living in a small – or compact and bijou in estate agent speak – bedsit. His initial entry into the employment world sees him startin...

It’s always good to see a production transfer from the fringe into the West End, so I was really pleased to be invited along to review Kevin Elyot’s  Coming Clean  which following a successful revival at the King’s Head Theatre in July 2017, has now opened at the Trafalgar Studios. Tony (Lee Knight) and Greg (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge) have been together for five years and seem to be happy in their relationship. Although they are a couple, they are open, which leaves Tony free to hit the discos with his best friend and total ‘scene queen’ William (Elliot Hadley) in search of a bit of ‘trade’. Tony is a frustrated writer and Greg is an author and teacher, which leaves little room for domesticity in their Kilburn flat. In an effort to restore harmony, Tony hires a cleaner, Robert (Tom Lambert) a young resting actor. Whilst young and apparently fairly naive, Robert is erudite and educated and, although Greg initially, doesn’t seem keen on him, he fits in well with the househ...