DIARY OF A GAY DISASTER at the King’s Head Theatre
★★★★
“The energy is infectious, with belting performances from all three cast members.”
When Mark Ravenhill and Hannah Price took over as artistic directors of the King’s Head Theatre in 2021, Ravenhill promised that the theatre would seek to represent ‘the full spectrum of experiences symbolised by the rainbow flag’. This Pride Month festival is doing just that, four guest artistic directors front ‘The Takeover’ season with Diary of a Gay Disaster being part of Tania Azevedo’s MT Pride Lab Season.
The show is a joyous and unapologetic exploration of the young queer female experience, bursting with riotous pop songs and tightly written one-liners. It’s specific, and plays to an audience who will relate, but that’s the beauty of it.
Ellis (Elly Fenton) is a new flatmate, joining intense and over the top Mia (Talya Soames) and chilled out Finlay (Liv O’Connor), who she’s met via Spare Room. In a desperate attempt to bond, Mia steals Ellis’ diary and insists they have a big night together reading it, to celebrate Ellis’ arrival. All three women are queer, and the diary documents the experiences of Ellis, growing up as a queer woman. They quickly find they’ve shared many of the same experiences, and each chapter is dissected, and sung about, in a string of poppy and peppy tunes.
The energy is infectious, with belting performances from all three cast members. Their passion shines in their comedy, and it stays high octane for most of the show. The more emotional, heartfelt moments are a little weaker, the characters are quite broadly sketched, meaning their own relationships are less interesting than the universal, relatable experiences that they sing about. But the commentary on current queer dynamics, on growing up queer and navigating finding a community is fresh and fantastic. One of the catchiest songs, ‘Is she queer or just a hipster’ will be an earworm for the foreseeable future. The conversations being raised are important, but are dealt with deftly and lightly.
Much of what works is thanks to the tightly written script, by Rachael Mailer, and the dynamic directing of Tara Noonan (as well as musical director Cerys McKenna). For the right audience, this play is liberating and relatable, perfectly articulating many people’s lived experience. It is also very funny. Strangely, if it were just the songs, and had less of a plot, it might even be stronger. There is a romantic plot shoehorned in, which doesn’t have time to develop, so comes a bit out of the blue. The characters are kept, on the whole, as tropes, to sum up different experiences. But it is fresh, and very funny. For several of the creative team, and cast, it is their theatre debut, and for a first foray, it is very strong.
The set is a bold, but simple, living room arrangement. Colourful bean bags, cushions and a sofa, which the three women slouch around on, pop up dramatically from behind. The lighting (Billy Highfield) is great fun, changing based on each song’s energy.
This show is bursting with catchy tunes, and tongue in cheek, very real commentary on the young queer female experience. It is a delight to watch, and a testament of the exciting new queer theatre that the King’s Head is showcasing.
SH!T-FACED SHAKESPEARE: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at the Leicester Square Theatre
★★★★★
“It is utterly chaotic, but that’s the glory of it”
A staple of the Edinburgh fringe, the premise of Sh!t-faced Shakespeare is simple: it’s a traditional Shakespeare performance (with liberties taken for comic purposes, of course) where one performer is, for want of a better word, sh*t-faced. That performer rotates every night, as do the cast, and the roles. No two performances will ever be the same…
Don’t go to this if you’re expecting a genuine production of Much Ado, it’s more like a crazed improvised performance, with chunks of Shakespeare loosely hanging it together.
Luckily, the sober performers are also packing in the gags and the quick improv. There is a risk with the concept that when the drunk performer isn’t on stage, the audience is left merely watching a Shakespeare play, and maybe not a great performance of it. However, this is not the case with this troupe – a running bit about Benedick having chlamydia, quick one-liners about choir boys and priests, dragging an audience member into the fray – this cast (and director Stacey Norris) know what they’re doing and do it well.
It is utterly chaotic, but that’s the glory of it. When things go wrong (and they do, often) it is part of the fun. Mics cut out, parts of the set (designed by Nicola Jones) are thrown from the stage, costumes fall apart, it all makes it more ridiculous, and more joyous.
A crucial role is played by the compare, for us it was Beth-Louise Priestley, who is on hand to keep the show ticking over, much to the horror of the drunk performer (Flora Sowerby) who seems mostly to want to monologue about the beauty of beards. Priestley runs around, mopping up spills, gathering Sowerby back from the audience, where she’s escaped, and blowing an air horn when things get too messy. There are times when this isn’t enough, and the chaos takes over, people talking over one another and all aiming to grab the spotlight. Most of the time though, it works well. Very well.
Sowerby shines as a drunk Beatrice, but the rest of the cast are also very strong. Holly Durkin and Matthew Seager make a very sweet Hero and Claudio, and Chris Lane is a deliciously evil Don John. John Mitton is a particularly quick Benedick, who manages to keep character, even while delivering witty one-liners. Stacey Norris delights as Leonata, bringing a real joy and feminist flavour to a usually boring part.
7pm is quite early for this sort of show, it feels like it could’ve been in a later slot, but no one seems to mind and the roars from the audience demonstrate that even on a Wednesday at 7pm, people are very up for this.
