IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★★

“a personal and gorgeous reflection on queerness, place, and boyhood that will leave you laughing one second and reaching for tissues the very next”

Is The Wi-fi Good in Hell? is a gorgeously flawless meditation on gentrification, platonic love, and on growing up gay in a deprived coastal area. Following the adolescence and youth of Dev, this one-man storytelling masterclass is as creative and engaging as it is hilarious. The audience fall in love with the story from the moment Dev, played and written by Lyndon Chapman, strolls onto the stage dawning an outfit and hat that wouldn’t look too out of place in a MySpace profile photo, and begins to unravel himself and his hometown of Margate.

Acted superbly by Chapman, the piece begins with the tongue-in-cheek humour of 13-year-old Dev struggling to find connection and fit in as a young gay kid from Margate in the late 00s. The writing captures the era gloriously and paints a vivid picture of Dev’s perspective on himself, attitudes, and surroundings. “If they laugh at your jokes, they like you” he hauntingly echoes throughout the piece. He later notes the modelling work of “local creatives”, who Dev bitingly admits are local but definitely did not go to his school.

Directed by Will Armstrong, Chapman transforms subtly and expertly from 13, to his later teens, to his early twenties, keeping a coherence of character that matures in voice and physicality but never looses Dev’s spark. The piece shines with Millennial / Gen Z cusp relatability and presents a new dawn of coming-of-age nostalgia that represents queer working-class experience in a didactic yet humorous way. It is marvellous to see this experience represented so magically on stage.

The piece’s storytelling has a distinctive voice that carries with it waves of professionalism and style. As Dev details his tumultuous experiences fitting in with his surroundings, himself, and others, we are met with Damian Pace’s stylishly technical sound design which compels the audience to hang on the story’s every breath. Characters who Dev encounters like Luke and Ange are also clear and powerful, despite never appearing on stage, and connections between them and Chapman’s protagonist are touchingly quiet and bittersweet.

Chapman’s script earns its tackling of more serious issues. Audiences poignantly wipe tears from their eyes as Chapman lets his roll tragically down his cheeks. Dev is presented with complexity and depth. In particular, the portion surrounding the different switching between his “5 voices” is massively effective and absorbing. Ideas about how queer men feel they must shape themselves and their outward personas, and how that impacts them internally, are well thought through and performed with honesty and careful humour. Is The Wi-Fi explains plainly how Dev feels he must blend throughout his young life to try and reduce homophobia.

The show also twists the supernatural and folkloric into real-life consequences in a mesmerising and beautiful feat of writing and directing. Visceral and otherworldly descriptions of something following Dev are woven interestingly into the story, and Chapman’s horror and confusion quickly becomes palpable for the audience. Is The Wi-Fi Good in Hell? is a masterfully supernatural and touching re-telling of the life of a young gay man growing up and moving away from a decaying coastline; a place soon to be overrun with gentrification. This is a personal and gorgeous reflection on queerness, place, and boyhood that will leave you laughing one second and reaching for tissues the very next.

IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Underbelly, Cowgate – Iron Belly

Reviewed on 25th August 2024

by Molly Knox

Photography by Charles Flint

IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL?

IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL?

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