Edinburgh Fringe 2024
An Adequate Abridgement of Boarding School Life as a Homo
Choir Boys & Co.
Genre: Comedy, Dramedy, LGBT, LGBTQ+ Theatre
Venue: Just The Tonic
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A far from adequate show filled with hilarious characters, Britney Spears, filthiness, grindr, annoying teachers and a very relatable 18 year old boy figuring out his place in the world.
Review
Walking into the Caves, a venue that has quite a ecclesiastical feel to it, was not the venue I expected to be told the story of ‘boarding school life as a homo’. I enter to the sound of Britney Spears; ‘Hit me Baby one more time’ on repeat and see a young lad in rugby gear sitting on stage looking bored. Everything about this doesn’t conventionally work and that’s what great about it. The juxtaposing atmosphere sets the audience up already to feel misplaced and highlighting the young lad as an outcast in his environment.
The young lad is 18 year old Johnny played by Ned Blackburn, who is exploring his sexuality and his place in the world- which proves to be extremely tricky. Even more tricky when you are attending an all boys boarding school and you’ve just come out as gay.
Playing opposite Ned is the very funny Will Walford who multi-rolls every character Johnny interacts with including his PSE teacher who feels like a cross between James Acaster and geography teacher Dan from channel 4’s ‘Fresh Meat’, as well as Harry who is Johnnys love interest.
Johnny and Harry both are struggling with their identities and this is a common theme throughout the play. Johnny deals with the pressures from the other boys and his headmaster to conform to a certain way of life, which he blocks out with the sounds of Britney Spears, ‘Grindr’ and episodes of the ‘Real housewives of Cheshire.’
Walford also plays the Johnnys school headmaster, who comes across as a heighten parody. The level Walford plays him at is too high and feels too farcical which loses the audience’s attention. ‘Sam’ on the other hand, another character played by Walford, is a gorgeous character. Walford takes on ‘Sam’ with such sensitivity and soul, creating a full bodied character.
This is a funny show. A slapstick comedy with dry and relatable; ‘Fleabag’ sense of humour to it. We were even presented with a very unexpected and outrageous Britney Spears dance routine that captured the attention of everyone in the room.
Nevertheless there were moments the actors were aware they were being funny and instead of just playing the character they played the joke which made a few jokes not land as well.
Although saying that, they know how to work an audience and play with them in an exciting way.
It must be said that Blackburn and Walford had brilliant chemistry with each other. Their performances complimented each others and they elevated each other to be shown at their best.
They both deliver nice visuals when recalling past stories which creates a stunning cinematic appearance, which glorifies their performances.
The play was written by Blackburn which is quite evident from his intuitive performance which felt like his sense of humour. He had a slight Jack Whitehall way of story telling. He was very funny, sarcastic and descriptive in his storytelling, acting out the stories hyperbolically. I checked my watch at 5 minutes left of the show and I had no clue how the show was going to finish which is extremely skilled work from Blackburn. Although it was dragged out, he took us off route and ended the show in the most satisfying way possible. This is not an adequate show of any means.
This is not just therapeutic show for gay men. This is a show we can all relate to. We all will or have been 18 and the experience of feeling lost in the world and living up to the expectations of others is not a foreign feeling by all. And most importantly we all have our own outlets to get us though hard times such as watching reality TV, going for a walk and perhaps listening to a bit of Britney Spears.
