Theatre Reviews

Sex Education

HHHH

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 7:10pm – 8:10pm, 31 Jul – 25

Aug, not 1, 12, 19

TICKETS: £12

LGBT+: inclusive sex education is suicide prevention. That’s the message of artist and provocateur Harry Clayton-Wright’s Sex Education, his debut solo theatre show at Summerhall. And it’s a message that is powerful and playful. Over an eye-popping hour of lecture, video and recorded interview, Clayton-Wright delves deep into his sex life—its pleasures and its pains—and points out the paucity of proper sex education in society.

It starts with a fairly x-rated montage of gay sex scenes featuring Clayton-Wright, then falls into a pattern. He chats for a bit, shows us some of the ‘80s gay porn that his errant dad gave him when he was 14, then continues to prepare cucumber sandwiches while an interview between him and his mother—not present, understandably—is piped over the sound system.

There are light moments—the story of how Clayton-Wright got hold of the bright, white wedding dress he wears for the first half of the show is priceless—and there are darker ones, too; memories that make Clayton-Wright question how well his parents prepared him for the life he now leads.

He’s a funny, frank performer, with a bone-dry wit and a carefree smile he cleverly uses to suggest inner torment. And, as he proudly asserts in a read-aloud letter to his mother, he doesn’t even need to put anything up his bum. Onstage, that is. Don’t be put off by the content warnings or the questionable cucumber sandwiches: this is a titillating show with a truthful, tender heart. ✏︎ Fergus Morgan

Pink Lemonade HHHH

VENUE: Assembly Roxy

TIME: 3:45pm – 4:45pm, various dates between 1 Aug and 25 Aug

TICKETS: £12

Growing up, Mika Johnson didn’t like wearing dresses or playing with girls’ toys. They note that we are constantly performing, like actors in a play. Combining spoken word, storytelling, dance and plenty of humour, they invite us into a dating life which centres around the concoction of a lemon cocktail. Johnson begins at a microphone, two tube strips which

Ripped HHHH

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 1pm – 2pm, 1–25 Aug, not 12

TICKETS: £10 – £11

Writer and performer Alex Gwyther delivers a heart-pumping, physically intense monologue, battling with trauma to mould his character into the stereotype of the “real man”. Moving to a different town following a sexual assault in a local park, Jamie—now reborn as Jack—ditches his best friend Sam, who’s mostly concerned about how Brexit is going to affect the price of Freddos, and befriends Max and a group of beer guzzling, cocaine sniffing lads. His role model is Rambo. He wants to become the ultimate warrior. He thinks that being part of a pack will mean he’s safe forever. He finds out that he couldn’t be further from the truth.

The stage is bare save a small black bench and can of Stella Artois. Lighting is warm and bright emit pink light either side of them to create a frame. Two pink boxes on the stage, one big and one small. One is lifted early on to reveal about a dozen lemons which are rubbed against their body as they dance.

Johnson teases with the audience, their cheeky grin charms and humours, as their body moves playfully into various shapes and poses. The performance is underscored with hip-hop, R&B and bashment, the latter being a modern uptempo relation to dancehall and ragga and a particular favourite of a girl Johnson meets at work. Johnson finds themselves the object of fetishisation from a woman who appropriates black culture from her hairstyle to the objects in her bedroom. Description and feeling sit hand in hand in a poetical text which plays plenty with rhythm and rhyme.

In a scene which provokes a considerable level of audience response, Johnson lies on the floor and inserts their head into one of the pink boxes, the sound of an orgasming partner playing through the speakers while Johnson moves their head and arms in and around the box. The narrative of the story is a little thin overall, but Johnson excels in the physical comedy and spoken word. They have a distinct and excitable performance style and form a lovable rapport with their audience while exploring queer identity. ✏︎

Joseph Winer

as Jamie relives his friendship with Sam, but a single side light casts dark shadows against his face as he fights through the presence of his own insecurities. The sound design rumbles in the clubs and bars, twigs snapping in the park, with a horrifying screeching that undertones the slurping of beer. Tension builds with the music. A plot twist drops and the air becomes motionless, dry.

Gwyther performs hard labour. He is totally engrossing, effortlessly transforming into the different characters: nervous hands as he tries to impress the lads, chest stretched out as he embodies and becomes the product of toxic masculinity. Sweat drips speedily from his face and his hair becomes a soaking mop. His body stiffens at the climax. The story alternates between the past and the present with Jamie firmly trapped in the middle. Gwyther’s storytelling is magnificent in its execution and engages with a topic matter that is crucially pertinent to a silence that still begs to be broken.

Joseph Winer