EDGING at the Old Red Lion Theatre
★★★
“Coates shines the brightest of the pair with his deadpan manner and fearless displays of physical humour”
Edging, a new play by co-writer and co-stars Harry Al-Adwani and Martin Coates, tells the story of Henry and Marcus, two childhood friends who reconnect after five years when Henry needs a place to stay after a break up. When Marcus relents and lets Henry stay, scenes from their childhood together in a seaside town, whose main event the Donkey Derby is clearly the only thing of note, play on his mind.
At its heart, Edging is a story of male friendship complicated by feelings that indicate more. Told mostly from Marcus’ perspective, we learn that Marcus is openly gay, coming out to Henry when they were teens. It’s implied that Henry is straight, having recently broken up with his girlfriend. It’s pretty clear as soon as Henry re-enters Marcus’ life that he feels something more. The piece explores the unrequited love between a gay man and his straight best friend – evoking the obsessive yearning and sexual frustration of adolescence that continues through to young adulthood with tenderness and raucous humour.
Marcus, played by Martin Coates, ironically comes across as the comedic straight man of the duo. But that’s not to say he plays second fiddle to Harry Al-Adwani’s funny man Henry. If anything, Coates shines the brightest of the pair with his deadpan manner and fearless displays of physical humour from Marcus’ incessant masturbation and solo sexual exploits. The piece’s opening tableau sets the tone and a scene with a carrot is particularly, intentionally, cringe-inducing. He is uncanny as Henry’s darling agent, who proclaims there is ‘nothing more important than acting’ between vegetable based terms of endearment.
“The ending is unexpectedly interesting”
Al-Adwani also draws laughs, but more obviously so. He delivers the wise cracks and wink-wink moments that balance against Marcus’ more dry manner. Perhaps it’s part of his character, as an aspiring actor that doesn’t have his life together yet, but he comes across as much more naive. And when, as Henry, he becomes obsessed with fixing Marcus a date, his ‘straight-eye for the queer-guy role’ wears thin quite quickly. Nonetheless Al-Adwani and Coates’ do have good chemistry.
The show is blessed with an extensive set in the steaming hot black box theatre of The Old Red Lion. All action takes place in Marcus’ flat – decked out with plenty of vintage furniture, ‘Milch’ posters, and ‘Cow Juice’ branded milk carton that really show the commitment to Marcus’s career as a milk salesman executive.
However, the story takes too long to reach its climax and at times the staging and temporal shifts feel a little juvenile. The ending is unexpectedly interesting – a case of conflicting memories over the incident that led to their friendship fading five years prior. Rather than wondering who was right, we want to know whether and how the pair will move forward.
Edging is almost a sharp show, carried by the comedic performances, but an overly complex and lengthy plot blunts its potential.
EDGING at the Old Red Lion Theatre
Reviewed on 19th September 2023
by Amber Woodward
Photography by Robert Fletcher-Hill
