Love Is Only Love continues at The Other Palace, London until 15 May 2022.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Directed by Jason Morell, Love Is Only Love dispenses with somewhat threadbare, tired types of storylines about gay male identity and serves up a refreshingly different, intimate, largely genteel and funny introspective into young gay love which, from an audience’s perspective, feels almost indecently intrusive.
The show’s first public performance was in July 2018 as part of the Pride new writing festival at The Other Palace and as writer and in the lead role, Sam Harrison has created a mini-classic. Inspired apparently by a rediscovered diary recording his first love affair, it’s a wonderfully innocent account of deep devotion, raw emotions and mixed memories. We witness Sam start on a journey of slightly rocky gender orientation and exploration, full of awkwardness, struggling with young physical intimacy and finding his sexual comfort zone – and we’re with him all the way.
That’s because his character is credible, vulnerable, sensitive, has a wicked sense of humour, not to mention facial expression for every occasion. “The world of music speaks to me,” he says and as an ardent Hello, Dolly! fan, and other musicals, his search for a sexual soul mate starts very early.
A school trip to France provides the perfect opportunity for gay love to truly blossom – enter Marc (David Seadon-Young) providing a Lille bit of what Sam really fancies. In the end the relationship fizzles out, but not before both Harrison and his tap-dancing co-star give us some priceless moments, some sad, some joyous and a few set to musical classics.
That’s when these two actors are really in their element, using every inch of the somewhat limited Studio stage and both giving top performances, Seadon-Young shining and perspiring almost fluorescently in multi-roles.
Talking about his creation, Harrison says: “I hope it shines a light on what some of us are marching for – love.” Come the end, judging by the audience reaction, love for Sam was truly all around.
Derek Smith
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.