L-R EM Williams, Zachary Willis and Ellice Stevens in After the Actat the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Picture: Alex Brenner
After the Act continues at the Traverse Theatre until 27 August 2023.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
There’s a retro clubbing feel as the audience enters T1 for After the Act, a verbatim musical reflecting on the impact of Section 28 of the Local Government Act; abstract visuals play on a scrim while musicians Frew (also composer) and Ellie Showering provide pulsing beats from a platform high above the multi-level set.
The cast of four – Tika Mu’tamir, Ellice Stevens (co-writer with director Billy Barrett), EM Williams and Zachary Willis – throw themselves into recounting events around the introduction of the law that forbade the mention of homosexuality in British schools between 1988 and 2003. Starting with the invasion of the BBC news studio by activists dismissed as ‘Hirsute Harpies’ (Sue Lawley singing a news bulletin while stifling an angry protester is something to behold) we witness key moments: the backlash against Haringey Council over the picture book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin (scenes from this are hilariously re-enacted while it slowly dawns on a teacher what she’s reading), the hateful rhetoric of Section 28 proposer Dame Jill Knight, the ‘tombstone’ AIDS warning narrated by John Hurt, and lesbians abseiling into the House of Lords in protest.
But the stories that truly resonate are the personal ones; the closeted lesbian PE teacher too horrified at recognising a pupil in a gay bar to offer support or reassurance, a brutal account of religious conversion therapy, the outwardly cheerful public schoolboy, blithely informing us about his self-harm and suicide attempts. These narratives are set in a range of styles, from heartfelt ballads to threatening choruses (“Where are all the ordinary mums and dads?” intone angry parents, faced with the prospect of homosexuality being ‘taught’ in schools).
The seemingly inexhaustible cast is uniformly excellent, turning on a sixpence to switch gender, accent and character and employing stylised ensemble movement as an effective counterpoint to the individual stories. (The assigning of roles is appropriately gender-neutral.)
The set is minimal (chipboard walls and platforms plus four chairs) with images of locations, newsreel and lurid headlines projected onto it to establish context. Costumes are utilitarian, apart from an outrageous Margaret Thatcher in a spangly blue outfit and helmet hair, teasing: “You didn’t think you’d get to the 90s without seeing me?” before launching into a jazz-hands number drawn from her infamous ‘inalienable right to be gay’ speech. This a breakout moment for co-writer Stevens, reminiscent of Victoria Wood’s Ann Widdecombe parody.
The lyrics are set to a throbbing, synth-based score that vividly recalls 1980s clubland. Verbatim theatre has form in contemporary musical theatre, notably Alecky Blythe’s London Road; here, the density of the text occasionally challenges the audience’s ability to follow its many narrative threads. But if the singing and choreography sometimes lack the polish of a West End musical, it hardly matters; spiritually the show recalls agitprop theatre of the 80s, playing out its narrative in a passionate and righteously angry voice, shot through with a vein of dark humour. A bittersweet reminder to those who lived through the hardship, hatred and activism of those years, and a timely lesson for those who did not.
Mark Kydd
Comments are closed.