The Nether at Royal Court

I can't use a witty title for this one because honestly The Nether by by Jennifer Haley was one of the most disturbing yet absorbing plays I've seen in a while. Following the recent spat of celebrities, politicians and more who have been uncovered as paedophiles after years of cover-ups and enabling by "those who didn't tell"; this play's subject is right at the heart of the public conscience at the moment. 

Its subject matter however is not really paedophilia, though the most horrifying of crimes is the vehicle used to lead the audience to the questions it asks; namely, on the Internet and virtual reality and morality. 

In summary, the Nether is set in a future where the Internet or the Nether as it is now called is an entire immersive world where people can log in and exist (much like The Matrix) in a virtual reality with their own chosen persona or avatar. Here they can live out their fantasies as they cannot in real life, look like they want, be with who they want and create realities that are the most aesthetically pleasing to them; a virtual wonderland if you will. For the reality that now exists in the play's present time is a grey world with no trees or natural spaces. 

The play focuses around a character named Sims or 'Pa' in the Nether who has created a server that is unreadable by the loose authority that polices the Nether, yet they know what goes on there. In the primary scene he is being interviewed by a Detective Morris, unsure how he has been found out.

The action switches between the present interviews, with Sims and another character Doyle as Detective Morris questions them endlessly about the goings on in the Nether and in particularly "Pa's" Victoriana throwback, the Hideaway to goings on in the actual Hideaway.

Here is where the play becomes magnificent really, because the set design and lighting takes us into a truly beautiful world, where there's green and trees everywhere and hyper colours and lightness. The Hideaway is almost abnormally beautiful and the use of light displays that show the matrix beneath it are also impressive.

Here we meet "Iris" - one of four children who live in the Hideaway to service the needs and pleasures of those who visit; "Pa" and another visitor "Woodnut" who seems to fall in love with Iris. The play continues from here as the characters nuances are shown and we get to grips with the question of whether such virtual behaviour helps or hinders these type of people when they go about in their in-world (real) lives. Does it not cause them to want to behave like this more? Additionally, Jennifer Haley has made the adult behind avatar Iris, in-love with Pa... which confuses us further.

"I've read the studies. No one has been able to draw a conclusive correlation between virtual behaviour and behaviour in-world."- Sims/Pa

The Guardian* subtitle says, Does inclination pre-exist exposure? This is again one of the questions that has continuously reappeared when referencing online and gaming behaviour, but the influence, the influence though.. there must be some the papers shout. I would hasten to agree with this even though nothing has yet been concretely proved it.

I was uncomfortable throughout the play, with the subject matter, with the young girl actress who played Iris (Isabella Pappas on my performance) being so affectionate with these old men. The production forces you to confront this fear and discomfort. 

However, to me, what it is really about is philosophy - if you make a certain choice or do a certain thing that is wrong - even in a virtual world, you have still performed this act. The tree has fallen in the forest even if you do not see it or hear it. That is my opinion. That is all. Others would disagree. There's also always disagreement about what is right and wrong, so there's that too. 

I would give the production, script, acting and especially set and lighting five stars and fully recommended The Nether. Expect to be blown away though.. I think I came away from it a little more fearful, a little more aware and winded by our current world.

The Nether is at the Royal Court until August 9th 

Images are (c) Johan Persson 

*The comments on this Guardian article show how much the subject riles

I Love Big Brother: 1984 at the Playhouse Theatre

George Orwell's 1984 is probably one of the texts’ that has most affected me in my life. I cannot say I have always loved it or that I did not struggle with its politics and deceptive language the first time I read it at 14 or 15. I loathed having to read the sections of O’Brien's book certainly. But I understood it and its suggestions burned deep within my psyche as a teenager, in a mind already troubled by pigs that looked like Stalin (aged 13). It was the beginning of my fervour for dystopian novels that lasted a few years, perfectly echoing my cynical teenage ways and I read my way through Atwood and Huxley, Burgess and HG Wells. 

Since GCSE coursework, I picked it up a couple of times at university for references but never read it properly again. Somehow it haunted me and the less than pleasant nature of the subject and the gruelling energy required for digestion somehow stopped me from rereading it. It's been 14 years. 

When the Headlong production at the Almeida Theatre received rave reviews, I knew I wanted to see it (it was at the Nottingham Playhouse prior to this). I knew that its relevance in today's screen-filled, observed world was almost not worth mentioning to the educated; I just wanted to see how it would be produced. Would it still shock and make one question everything. Or was I just older and less cynical now, hardened against Orwell's didactic warnings. Ready just to observe the way it was interpreted. Was I hell. 

I finally got tickets to the production when it transferred to the Playhouse Theatre on the Embankment and went in with no pre-conceptions with my standard theatre friend D. Light Wednesday viewing we knew it would not be,

“Will we be very depressed do you think, afterwards?”

“Most likely,” I answered, “but in the good way, the Byronic way, the I’ve just got angry about the world, but at least I’m involved way.. You know.”

The thing is, relative to Orwell’s message in the novel is, it did not depress me. Relative to my viewing of the great 1984 film Nineteen Eighty Four with John Hurt and Richard Burton, it did not either. This play is sharp and certainly encourages reflection, but it did not out and out depress me.

The creators, Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan have created a nimble yet intelligent adaptation. The set by Chloe Lamford is fabulous and so simple, one backdrop really, until Room 101, with a small bedroom partition as the sluttish “room with no screen” in the place that time stood still. The use of lighting, sound and video projections is also perfectly apt for this production, used wisely and well. Cracking through the senses at the exact points necessary and propelling Orwell’s far-too cliché-cluttered Room 101, back to its original terrifying form.

From the beginning of the play the presence of a crowd of people, unrecognisable characters who seem to be discussing Orwell’s novel, work as an impressive narrative tool... almost Brechtian, I thought, so aah... yes we are observing fiction here... This became more confusing as the play went on as characters in the “book club” seem to also be part of Winston’s life and unravelling. Nothing new there you may say, multiple roles, but it felt more uncomfortable, like they were sort of living part of his story as they discussed it, or had already lived it. Was it a novel or a case study or a history book, we may never know.

 

 

The lead actors, Sam Carne as Winston and Hara Yannas as Julia were also affective. Though both far too attractive, from what I remember of the novel, this did not affect your belief of them. Carne particularly plays Winston as the reluctant hero that we all know him to be. With a stuttering sort of character, never knowing whether he is in or out, or what he knows, seized by fits of passionate hatred and lulls of quiet dissonance.

The themes we know and love are still there. The demise of language into newspeak, something which thankfully worries me less now as it did 14 years ago, as I see more and more words enter our dictionaries; no snobbery against the #selfie please and thank-you. Yes, doublethink, well we know this can happen.

Screens, screens and watching us ALL THE TIME, for the paranoid luddites this will certainly ring true, for the normal person who browses the internet, this will feel like a nagging headache. Yes we should be careful. Even in the room with no screen they are seen. 

 Love. Is it there? I wasn’t convinced in this production, but then I never have been. From the moment I first read 1984, I did not believe in the love between Winston and Julia. She is his soapbox, his humanity, the one who shoves him from the comfort of thoughtcrime to out and out treason and hatred of Big Brother. But love, I don’t know. In this production, she very obviously personifies human desires, wants, needs, all the things banned by Big Brother. Chocolate and sex she is... To be honest, I always thought Orwell was a little unfair on Julia; he seems to hate her and love her equally. She is brave but where is this directed. Can we really believe that someone in that circumstance would only care about their animal wants while risking so much... but that’s just me.

A particularly resonating scene of the production for me was the two minutes hate, a government form of brainwashing by whipping the subjects into a frenzy of hate against the party enemies by showing them shocking footage. This is something where live action beats the page and although we all know about extremist regimes that practice this. It was recognising similar traits in our society that shivered down my spine. Hatred of particular groups or people is all too easy when we are looking for someone to blame.

Room 101... the terror, the torture the mind. This was also a chilling scene as I said. The set resembled a mental institute and reminded the audience or certainly me of the egocentric nature of our fear and our rebellion. Especially exaggerated in this production,

 “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

Well, yes and this is the route of all the fear of Big Brother, if he can change in our inner thoughts, then we are doomed.

I do not know how the creators of this production managed to fit so much into 90 minutes. Even those with no knowledge of Orwell’s novel would comprehend and consider the messages in this play... Go see it. It’s a must.

1984 is at The Playhouse Theatre, London
Running until 23^rd August.

I Love You: Secret Theatre Show 5

Basically, I am not really sure what I am going to do when the Secret Theatre series is over and I don't even know when that will be because it's all secret and that. I have developed a full blown fangirl obsession with the shows and the company. It's a proper crush... After I saw Show 5 last Thursday, I proceeded to:

1).Tweet the Lyric immediately and asked them for the soundtrack so I could play it on my iPod on my commute

2). Google, Google, Google for signs of Show 6? And for news of the tour...

3). Stalk all the actors and actresses I could find on Twitter and try and find out which ones were single/might want to make new friends/would potentially slip me a tongue when pissed/stalkable in local bars as I only work in Chiswick. ;) #lol Because I love them all.

4). Also stalk the writers..as a writer and a wannabe playwright.. I need some of what they're drinking.

5). Work out when I could possibly see it again...

6). Dance to Proud Mary until I fell over

You see everything changed for me after Show 5... After I had been to see Show 3 and Show 4 (read the reviews, they are pretty sensible compared to this one) I knew I was a Secret Theatre convert and that now I had to see every one. I was even annoyed about the fact I missed one and two... (Though just mildly irked, now I am enraged).

 

A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts - what Show 5 is otherwise known as - has left me all teenage and trembly and happy and light. It's not as emotionally powerful as Show 3 or as clever as Show 4 but it taps in to humanity and fear and failure and friendship and love. 

Show 5 is set in the Lyric rehearsal room and every night there is a different protagonist... a typical Secret Theatre twist which I believe (here is a tiny bit of sensible critique stuff here) must keep it alive and kicking every night, full of the energy of the unknown... The audience pick it out, so they can't even cheat... not that they would need to as they're all so talented (I told you, massive fangirl)

My protagonist was the fabulous Katherine Pearce (Kat) who I knew was talented and able to transform herself, from the previous two productions. In this, she was I imagine a played up version of herself. Everyone else was supporting in more or less roles. Everything centered round Kat and her trials, tribulations and difficult times in life and love and friendship. 

Some of the sketches were more narrative: sex, first kiss/ first date, falling in and out of love and being destroyed by it, cheating. Others were more metaphoric or symbolic: an obstacle course that was undertaken several times throughout the play at first alone and then helped by the whole cast; an odd sort of shrink session; a wrestling game involving fears and stripping. A shiveringly warming version of Sincerely by The Moonglows sung by Hammed Annimashaun, a dance to Proud Mary which I really had to force myself not to join in with... Each little excerpt bringing tears, laughter and recognition from the audience.

90 minutes shot by and I wanted more and I wanted to see all of the cast members take the protagonist role, because I felt like they were giving us a slice of themselves and a themselves that everyone in the company knew too. The Secret Theatre group have created something together.. and all these individuals have joined to create and perform it and they've got to know each other.

When I was a child and teenager, I used to be in all the school plays... used to love the rehersals, the comraderie, the thrill and then after the final performance for at least a week after I would cry and cry and feel miserable that I could never get that feeling back or work and act with those people again - not in that exact same circumstance... It was like a small piece of magic and then gone. Then after a week I'd forget about it.

I hope these lot never do.

Secret Theatre Show 5, The Lyric, Hammersmith

Now until May 29th


Here is the Soundtrack for Show 5


Here are The Secret Theatre Crew:

Nadia Albina @NadiaAlbina -

Hammed Animashaun @HamzDaActor

Cara Horgan

Leo Bill @SerpicLeo

Matti Houghton

Adelle Leonce @AdelleLeonce

Katherine Pearce @KattiAnn

Billy Seymour @SeymourBilly

Sergo Vares

Steven Webb @MrStevieWebb

Love them all <3

Images are (c) The Secret Theatre Group

Flights of Fame: Birdland at the Royal Court

   

"Do you want to go and see 'A piercing new play looking at empathy, money and fame' - Birdland, it is at the Royal Court newish... I know it's a Monday but..."

It's fair to say our seats were pretty far back, but when you go online for the £10.00 day release tickets for a new play at 9.07 instead of dead on 9.00, that is loath to happen. Theatre-friend D and I were reasonably early and she was so suntanned in the greyness of rainy Sloane Square that I felt positively cement coloured next to her.

"India good was it..Let's get some wine... 

Also, I can't believe Peaches Geldof has just died, I nearly threw up on the way here. It's just so terrible."

"I looked after her dog once you know.. When I worked for that designer."

"I know.. Can you move under the alcove please it's raining quite a bit now... Isn't it weird that we feel so sad about it when we didn't even know her. I cried a bit and I felt guilty for crying, cos we don't like know her... Can I have my lighter back please"

This was how are evening started. Grey and morose. I knew it wouldn't be a cheery one either "the perils of fame" having been bandied around a bit in reference to Birdland. To be honest none of the plays I go to see seem to be that cheerful. The man behind the bar told us the set was impressive, though.. that was something. Indeed our seats were so far back and with both of us being blind as bats you see. It was like a Van Gough version.

"That's why we can't book last minute.. we're too vain to carry our specs around all the time..."

D's blinder than me...but we could make out the impressive stage from the start, all water - a sort of moat actually, blue lighting and upright wooden structures and I could make out the faces of the "company" of characters. You know thems... all in sunglasses and trendy outfits and signifying the mood around the lead character. Such a modern narrative tool but actually Shakespeare did it OK.

 And how did I not know Andrew Scott was playing the lead... I am such a fan of his acting and his weird, weird voice and face. Famous as Moriarty in Sherlock opposite beautiful Benedict and I remember him in the Hour too, but really he's a prolific theatre actor. He's got such a way with being evil and twisting his face and body up... such a physicality about him..

The play tells the tale of the last week of a very famous rockstar's third tour. Fame has already gripped this guy, there's no going back. He's bored, cruel, jumpy and slightly insane.

 

He treats money like water, he boredly copulates with any female that he tosses his eyes at.. Including his best friend's girlfriend who then kills herself. He takes a member of the female hotel staff from Moscow to Paris because he can.

His character is really very hard to sympathise with. Wired that he is. Consumed by fame that he is.

He hates the fame. Hates not knowing he is. Hates the photos and yet he loves it too. Loves his own power.

In a conversation with his father who's asking him for money he is shocked over he value of £1000.00 to his father. It's not uncharted territory.

“Everything can be quantified. All worth can be quantified. Artistic worth. Human worth. Material worth. Everything. Some food is simply better than other food. Isn’t it? Some clothes are better than other clothes. Aren’t they?” - Paul

Of course he ends up in a sticky end.. Sleeping with a minor, facing jail time, owing his record company millions and do unable to quit.

What is incredible is both the acting of Andrew Scott and the wonderful set. As the perils of fame suck Paul further into its clutches, the stage submerges, tilted into the surrounding water.

Other cast members are ghostly as if unreal and we live through his manic mind, never sure if what we believe to be happening actually is.

The physicality that Scott displays as Paul is all part of it as well, jerkily dancing throughout. The bird that he is, pulled by the winds of fame like a dark Icarus, too close to the desired prize, or the black swan whose lost all memory of the white.

Overall I would recommend this play to anyone who is interested in the nuances of fame or who wants to see an excitingly staged production with a lead actor that takes up the stage with his entire physical presence. Drugs, sex, ghosts, suicide, paedophilia, blackmail, loneliness it has it all. Who'd want that. 

It wasn't cheerful is for sure. We sat soggily in the bar next door after the performance, not perky, watching Sloane Square go home, thankful we weren't famous. 

Birdland
Written by Simon Stephens
Directed by Carrie Cracknell
3 April - 31 May

at

The Royal Court
50-51 Sloane Square
London
SW1W 8AS

020 7565 5000

www.royalcourttheatre.com

Images (c) Richard H. Smith
Video (c) The Royal Court

Can we Contract our Sex Lives: Dicks and Love in The Mistress Contract

First, I would like to say that I am a total fangirl for Abi Morgan, she is basically who I would like to be. Secondly, I am a feminist of the "everyone should do the fuck they want and not judge each other sort". Yet thirdly, I still find myself rather awkward in the whole discussing sex as a commodity and a currency sort of thing. When I heard about this play I was dying to see it, but I didn't comprehend the idea of a woman contracting her sexual favours to be more in control of her life.

The play is based on a book by a real life man and mistress couple, He and She who made said contract back in the 80s and then taped many of their conversations together over the years. They are still together and are now in their 80s and 90s.

The contract outlines that the man must give the woman an income and a place to live in exchange for company when he wishes and

All sexual acts as requested, with suspension of historical, emotional, psychological disclaimers.

She claims to make the contract to protect herself so that she feels in a stronger and safer position. She is a feminist and makes this clear when she draws up the contract, but her feminist group buddies would not approve.

The thing is that this play promises to be rampant, the word mistress and contract and sex, I was at least expecting some investigation of how it feels to "suspend" that emotion. Or some chats about the sex. Yet, the sexiest moment is the discussion of giving head in the car in the first five minutes. She resents it apparently, she doesn't always want to put his dick in her mouth.. Hence the contract After that there's rarely any dirty chat.

This play is a love story plain and simple, reflecting the real love story that exist between the real life couple. This contract seems no different to a marriage contract for some. Calling it "mistress" does not make it feminist. They are just in love. 

Throughout the play, the couple bicker and relate to each other like a married couple and the only hint of feminism is when She berates He for getting sprinklers fitted in her garden without asking her. The story may begin with a contract, but essentially it is an analysis of a relationship that doesn't fall under the "normal" label. There's much discussion of the couples children, the woman's daughter in particular, what she hoped for her, what she isn't doing and how her choices are so different. Again, like any normal set of parents. 

I haven't read the book, so perhaps the narrative in prose piques different thoughts.

As usual, Abi Morgan writes raw and Danny Webb and Saskia Reeves are all realism and considered acting. Yet you just can't help but wish they'd say more. But maybe there isn't more to say, maybe they are just happy in their situation. Perhaps we just consider that they should say more and feel more because they are not in a conventional pairing. Surely She should want more.. Surely there is some climax that they should reach because She can't handle the terms of the contract anymore? In fact it is only He who seems to display a little discomfort toward the latter half of the play, She seems fine - thank-you very much - with what she has.

Far more questioning about what or what was not appropriate/feminist/legal, was the talk I attended a week after I saw the play. In homage to the Mistress Contract, the Royal Court hosted a fine crew of feminists, academics and opinion leaders in "Should we Contract our Sex Lives". 

The panel was chaired by the fabulous Times columnist and radio presenter, Libby Purves. The other panelists were playwright, Alecky Blythe (dying to see her work now) who pens verbatim dramas about prostitutes and such; Anthropologist, Professor Sophie Day who wrote an acclaimed monograph 'On the Game: Women and Sex Work’; feminist theorist Lynn Segal who has written much on the shifting understandings of feminist, masculinity and sexuality (and who is fucking awesome); and prominent LGBT campaigner and human rights activist, Peter Tatchell.

The talk, though pulling out of points just as they became interesting, (the timing as always) was much more fiery. Much dirtier and darker, it  covered everything from forty-year-old prostitutes to emotional distance and what kids should learn about prostitutes and prostitution at school. 

Sophie Day outlined at the beginning that our sex lives are already contracted in marriage. Then we moved on to prostitution and whether the law should change to protect women better. Can prostitution ever be liberating? Lynn Segal argued that the current acceptance that "everything (including sex) is modifiable and commercially viable" is dangerous.

Peter Tatchell maintained that male prostitutes, on the whole, are less victimised. In gay porn according to him, the men seem to enjoy it. We stopped just short of discussing biology in relation to porn and prostitution, but the sentiment was there. Dick chat was there. I was prude and uncomfortable in my seat at this point, twisting and hoping for the subject to change, wanting to scream.. what you meant is he's got a fucking hard on. Cheers for that.

I still love Abi Morgan and I enjoyed the observation of the conventional relationship in the Mistress Contract, but it wasn't feminist. I don't think She wanted a conventional marriage, she liked the boundaries of the contract, but not for feminist reasons. 

Money for sex is never going to be feminist, either what way. It puts one person in a position of power and renders one as a tool for pleasure..what does that say?

Next time, I'd like more of the reality of contracted fucking and less discussion of  the day-to-day frivolities please. But perhaps then, it is true, life is the little moments.

The Mistress Contract by Abi Morgan
was at
The Royal Court, Sloane Square, London SW1W 8AS 
www.royalcourttheatre.com

The Mistress Contract by She and He is available on AmazonCE: 020 7565 5000

The Pride at Trafalgar Studios, Love and a Casual Tom Daley Reference

Two weeks ago marked a first for me. I went to the theatre alone. Not a huge event some might say and indeed I've never been one of those people who are uncomfortable in my own company. If anything I quite enjoy sitting in a cafe alone with a book or wandering quietly around an art exhibition. However, the theatre, something I love to engage with and debate and which warrants necessary social interaction in the interval where a glass of wine and a cigarette - for the dirty smokers still resolutely among us- is part of the enjoyment, I would always prefer a companion.

However, there was just no getting round this one. The Pride at the Trafalgar Studios was coming to the end of its extended run and I could find no friends able to come with me in the last four days. I'd wanted to see it since it opened, even telling my housemate who promptly took her boyfriend and raved about it. So I stomped there alone on a Wednesday night,  ticket-less and hoping that I was right and a last minute cheap ticket would be available and would warrant my 40 minute journey from work. (Since then I have found out that there is a UK tour starting January 14th - details at the bottom)

I was incredibly lucky, not only was there one £10 ticket left - in a box, restricted vision - but once I entered the theatre I was promptly moved to the second row where some seats were spare.

Written by Alexi Kaye Campbell and directed by Jamie Lloyd, the basic premise of the play is two parallel love-stories, two love-triangles if you will, one now and one in 1958. The play explores the changing attitudes to homosexuality and how people love. It uses the same characters as if they had existed now and before and how their lives differed.

From the beginning, the quality of acting was clearly quite extraordinary. That was one of the major gratitudes I took from being able to see this play. From Harry Hadden-Patton's portrayal of the repressed, shamed, married Philip in 1958 and his more relaxed and hurt counterpart is effortless.  With incredible projection, even in his 1958 rages at the more self-accepting Oliver, he loses not one word.

Matt Horne, loved by many on the small screen in Gavin & Stacey, Bad Education and more showed real adaptability in three small roles as a gay escort, lad magazine editor and a doctor trying to "cure homosexuals". He manages to exhibit wonderful comic timing alongside real emotional moments in a performance which made me want to see much more of him in the theatre.

Al Weaver depicts both versions of his character with great emotional range. Oliver's weaknesses including promiscuity and sex addiction and his temper tantrums which seemed to sprout from self-hatred could be a little tiresome if Weaver did not so successfully weave them with the fragility and idealism of his earlier counterpart. His character, of them all, is so well-merged and recognisable in both it's forms as a reaction to the time. Due largely to Weaver's great talent.

Finally, heavenly Hayley Atwell. Already a favourite of mine in such roles as TVs Upstairs Downstairs and films like The Duchess and Brideshead revisited, she comes alive in the theatre. In the 50s she is Sylvia, the vivacious yet disregarded wife of the unhappy Philip, her sadness, awareness, brave spirit and desire to be loved is heart-breaking to see. Her modern doppelganger is as vivacious and witty as she, but with an earthiness that is just so attractive. In both modern and old tales, she is relied upon by these men but never the first priority. In the second it seems she has found love. Though we never meet him. He stage presence throughout brings a light to the production as she personifies the gilded survivor, adapting and adapting to extract the most from life. Always caring about others. A beautiful actress - I love her.

One of the last scenes in the play involves the modern versions of the separated Philip and Oliver alone on a picnic blanket trying to work out their differences,in the midst of Gay Pride as the crowds parade around them. Whilst in the fifties final scene we see a meeting between Sylvia and Oliver as she reveals she is leaving Philip as she wants to be loved and it is just so sad.

With the recent backward movements of Putin's Russia, the play is very relevant. In fact we are pointed towards this at the end as the cast bring on placards reading "To Russia, With Love." Indeed it certainly  illustrates the immense changes that have occurred in the last 50 years.

And what this play is really about is love. About being allowed to love honestly. How rare love is and how treasured it should be and how it has its difficulties, no matter the sex, age, religion, nationality. The ability to love and be loved is what makes us human and whoever we should choose to fall for matters little as the process itself is both elating and difficult and frightening. Yet is a gift, we alone have. Why make it more difficult by judging whom people fall for. It is a minefield for us all.

In the two weeks since I saw this play, the country and the world has reacted outwardly with mostly positive delight to the revelations by teenager diver, Tom Daley that he is dating a man. In his YouTube confession, one of the points he made was that "it shouldn't really matter" and he's right. It was a brave action because of the way he chose to do it, not because of who he chose to date. Love is about the person after-all. The reaction to this event has proved that our country at least has generally become more accepting of that which is not considered "normal".

However, the recent documentary, Out There presented by Stephen Fry, which looked at what it's like to be gay in various places around the world, which range from a non-acceptance of homosexuality to complete abhorrence, it is obvious, we still have a long way to come. We are all responsible for that. We are all responsible for fighting for love.

So have Pride in love, I say to all. None of the rest of it matters.

The Pride was at the Trafalgar Studios until November 23^rd  

A UK tour begins January 14^th - 1^st February visiting Brighton, Manchester and Richmond with Naomi Sheldon taking Hayley Atwell's role as Sylvia. All other actors remain in the same roles.

Images (c) The Trafalgar Studios and Marc Brenner