A Grand Quiet

I didn’t go in to He Wears it Well expecting to be bowled over. I have seen a fair amount of queer theatre in my life and am — at this point in my personal and artistic journey — somewhat sceptical of the necessity of the ‘coming out’ story. Yet somehow, despite this, with each new scene my delight grew and grew.

The first play by Pin Theatre Collective starts as quiet and unassuming as one half of its main characters, but as it rolls on reveals itself to be as sly and emotionally-intelligent as the same. Its story of the relationship between a premier league footballer and video game developer is certainly concerned about what the straights might think and how important their opinion is, but for the majority of its runtime allays those thoughts to focus on the internal lives of the characters.

Archie, the footballer, immediately conjures the shadows of of John Donnelly’s play (and later film) The Pass, Luke Hewitt giving a wonderful performance as this figure who — despite having dedicated his life to training his body — still has no idea what to do with his hands. He’s the physicality of someone who yearns to be in motion, constrained by circumstances and the creatively used bounds of the small playing space. It’s wonderful work, compulsively watchable.

Perceptively, Phoebe Mulchay’s direction bisects the world, creating defined spaces of confrontation and comfort. Her work with the actors highlighting the tenderness present in a script that may in less controlled hands be played for the succession of ready laughs it offers. There’s a gentility and a sweetness about it that is spoken to clearly in the gestures of its more settled moments.

Key to achieving that tone is the work of Nicholas Downton-Cooper, the other performer in the piece, who approaches his role with a winning energy, grounded and understated. The ‘supportive boyfriend’ type can be a hard one to make satisfying, there’s not a lot of drama to be driven out of security, and admittedly there is less for him to do here, but he finds specificity regardless and manages to make the part feel comfortably lived-in.

All this and I don’t want to understate how funny the script is, it had me laughing from beginning to end. There’s a wonderful playfulness in the way that it sets and breaks its own conventions, and the whole thing moves at such a clip that by the time it finished I was surprised at how much time had passed and was longing for there to have been more. It’s not without it’s rough edges, natural for a show that has a month’s worth of polish before beginning its main run, but the bones of India Rogers’ script more than bear the weight.

Bound, a film that I love, ends by asking ‘Do you know what the difference is between us?’ and struggling to find an answer. He Wears it Well drives at that same sense of communality, thinking that maybe if we can be united in our struggle then the superficial differences might really be no more than skin deep. Like its characters, this play seems deceptively simple, know that there’s more craft on show here than first meets the eye.

He Wears It Well will be running at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 4th through 26th, tickets are available here.