Queers is a collection of eight monologues curated by Mark Gattis and aired on the BBC in 2017, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised sex between two men over twenty-one.
This revival by Torch Productions uses six of the monologues and keeps with the setting of one pub seen through several decades - in this case, three tables in Burton Taylor’s cosy black box studio. I went to Queers Part B, which comprised three 20-minute monologues.
For an hour-long show, it’s astonishing how much story is compressed into these pieces. This is in part, the beauty of monologues in general. Of course, the catch is they require powerful acting to pull off - and thankfully, this cast completely delivered on that front.
All three actors are onstage for the duration of the show, and as the monologues feature time skips within them, it would have seemed to me like a natural choice to intercut them, but this production chose to keep each piece separate.
Once the production finished, the benefits of this were clear: it allowed the mood of each piece to fully permeate, and created an interesting journey through time - the trio take us from the early 20th century to the 1980s, to the present day.
First, we have Niamh Simpson’s Bobbie in The Perfect Gentlemen, looking dapper and unflappable in a three-piece suit. Leaning confidentially towards the audience (the intimacy of the BT studio was the ideal backdrop for this monologue) Bobbie divulges that despite appearances, they were in fact assigned female at birth. Sitting with balletic posture and speaking with tutorly elocution, you understand immediately how this character has built an armour of wit and poise, which, mesmerisingly, drops in their more tender recollections.
Bobbie takes on a journey from delicate childhood flirtations with their female friend, their first heartbreak, leaving for the big city, first trying on men’s clothes, to living as a man and ‘curing’ bored married women of ‘hysteria’ behind the pub they frequent. But when Bobbie falls for a girl that wants more from them, they devise an exceptionally dubious plan involving a whittled candle. Complications ensue, both devastatingly and rather hilariously - the piece is stippled throughout with a wry, bruised humour that Simpson’s delivery accentuates.
After these events, there’s this fog of pain that descends over the piece. It’s clear that Bobbie is grieving more than just a person, a dream has also been snuffed out. It reminded me of this bell hooks quote:
“Queer' not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but 'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.
Simpson is sharply profound in the role, where some actors may have been satisfied with a superficial impression, here Bobbie’s mannerisms are just the lacquer over layers of doubt and hope.
It’s not clear whether nowadays Bobbie would identify as a butch lesbian, non-binary or a trans man. But what is definitely clear is Bobbie’s monologue is the only one that focuses on loving women. The only other female role, occurring in Part A, is set in the 1950s from the perspective of a closeted gay man’s wife/beard.
Now, not everything can or should be about everyone and I wondered if, as the monologues were originally curated to reflect the anniversary of (certain instances of) sex between men being decriminalised, that was the reason behind the pieces prioritising male homosexuality. But as this was never made explicit, I found myself wishing there was a bit more of a balance of lesbian and gay stories throughout; although that’s more of a criticism of Mark Gatiss than Torch Productions.
In the middle piece More Anger, we meet Chris Johnstone’s Phil. He’s a gay actor who gets regular work in sentimental AIDS death scenes and has a satisfying ongoing dalliance with a man named Simon but longs for more on both fronts. A regular role on a soap, playing a not-camp, not-positive gay character might be about to change things for him.
It’s a punchy, well-timed role, and Johnstone brings the right casual irreverence to it. Like a more cynical Richie Tozier from It’s A Sin, you can believe his character is an actor and enjoys being the centre of attention. Clinging to a stoicism and wry detachment like a kid playing tough, you sense his horror at the ongoing crisis like a worry in the back of your mind.
The regular role on the soap turns out to be as beige and sexless as an IKEA store, with a boyfriend to match, a reassurance and reminder to the programme’s straight audience that some gay people - hey’re just like us! ‘Man, the hugging we get up to!’, Phil quips. Meanwhile, in reality, his burgeoning relationship with Simon takes a painful turn. We see the brittleness and capriciousness of tolerance weighing on Phil, and sense his fury building. When it finally erupts, it’s electrifying.
The final monologue is the least confronting, more of a slow-burn piece about the complicated context of getting married as an older gay man, David Guthrie’s Steve, essentially buying into an institution that has until recently excluded him. But where A Perfect Gentlemen ends on a note of loss, and being lost, Something Borrowed is all about finding and being found.
Guthrie nicely matched the understated energy of the material. Unlike the natural showmanship of Simpson and Johnstone’s characters, he perfectly captures an introvert’s chagrin and dread of standing up and speaking in front of everyone you know. He reflects, in places gratefully, in places bitterly on his life up until this point, and ultimately decides he wants this day for himself and his future husband, to make whatever they want of it. It’s a very ‘love-is-love’ piece but in a sincere and subtle way. The writing is a bit more freewheeling and less propulsive than the previous two pieces, but the acting is just as heartfelt, and it felt wonderful, and merciful, to end the night on a note of hope and warmth.
Queers was a well-crafted, deeply felt success, and I look forward to seeing what Torch Productions do next.