It’s not often that I see a piece of theatre that makes me cry with laughter one minute and then just cry the next, but My Gay Best Friend managed it easily and I walked out of the Emporium with a tear still in my eye.
Racquell and Gavin are best friends. Both work in Boots in Eastbourne, he as a cleaner and she as a shop assistant. They met when he knocked her carefully put together nail varnish display over with a mop, went arse over tit and ended up in A&E “with four stitches and a lifelong scar.”
Now both are sitting in different toilets, chewing over their lives and their friendship, and talking directly to us, the audience.
Racquell is waiting to go on stage to sing for the first time in a very long time, while Gavin is trying to produce a potful of sperm to inseminate the bull dyke next door.
And there they are for most of the evening. Characters sitting in bogs doesn’t seem like a very promising start to an evening’s theatre, but it’s the perfect mirrored environment for them both to spill the beans (and for Gavin to hopefully spill more than that….)
Funny and soulful at the same time is a difficult act to pull off, but writer Nigel Fairs, who plays his own (somewhat autobiographical) creation Gavin, not only gets away with it, but runs with it and scores a touchdown. It works in two ways: as a series of monologues that would stand up on their own, but when they intertwine you get theatrical dynamite and a beautiful portrait of a strained but solid relationship where each person is as needy of the other but for very different reasons.
It’s easy to see that Racquell, played by ex-Doctor Who and Eastenders actress Louise Jameson, has been damaged by something or someone along the way, but when the revelation comes, it’s heart-wrenching. Jameson’s acting is wonderfully arms flailing Northern brash one minute and eye of the storm the next. She fixes the audience with a steely eye, and seems unafraid to talk in her broad Barnsley accent about anything (“Do you remember discovering your clitoris, girls?”), until it touches on things that no one wants to have to hear.
The more solid, stable figure, nicely spoken Gavin, has got one of those faces that make people open up to him which is sometimes a blessing (when meeting Racquell) and sometimes a curse (when in a darkroom in Sitges). But he’s had his problems, not least of which was growing up gay in Burgess Hill and coming out in the 80s when it was “all those dreadful tombstones on the telly.” Now 45, he thinks that as a gay man he’s become invisible and despairs of ever having a meaningful relationship again.
The success of this production relies on whether we buy into both characters and their complex relationship, and that’s easy to do with writing this intimate, engaging, and spot on. It’s as if the duo are talking to us over a cup of tea and a Nice biscuit at the kitchen table, with their eyes frequently meeting ours as they let us in on their little secrets, foibles, worries, and often their pain.
This small but perfectly formed production is a must-see for any gay men and fag-hags out there. I guarantee you’ll recognise just a little bit of yourself in Gavin and Racquell. Actually, it’s simply a must-see performance for everyone. Power to its elbow as it goes off on its tiny weeny tour, and I really hope My Gay Best Friend gets a lot more exposure over the next few years. It certainly deserves it. I’ll be looking out for the name Nigel Fairs in the future and will jump at the chance of a ticket to anything else he writes, as should you. I’m confident you won’t be disappointed.
WHAT: My Gay Best Friend
WHERE: The Emporium, London Road, Brighton
WHEN: You’ve missed it, but it’s in Bath and Barnstaple later in the year if you’re near there
RUNNING TIME: 80 minutes
MORE INFO: CLICK HERE:
WOULD I SEE IT AGAIN: Yes, and I’d take all my mates too
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