Thursday 25th February
Outings – review
Curve, studio theatre
Outings 25th and 26th February
The world’s first show based on true-life coming out stories
by Thomas Hescott and Matthew Baldin
Our rating: *****
Reviewed by Trevor Locke
Moving, funny, disturbing but wholly insightful
On stage tonight were Andrew Doyle, Caroline Lennon, Hardeep Singh Kohli and Camille Ucan.
The phrase ‘coming out’ has embedded itself in the British language. Originally it meant ‘coming out of the closet’, a phrase coined in America in the 1960s. Tonight the four actors read a series of stories, collected and edited by Thomas Hescott and Matthew Baldwin, originating in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. The show began at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2014 and most of the stories were submitted to a couple of websites run by the editors. These stories reflect the life experiences of men and women from around the world as they reveal their sexual orientations to their family, friends and work colleagues.
Moving, funny and sometimes disturbing, these stories tell us a lot about the world we live in and the people who react to the confessions of those nearest to them. The 20 or so stories are vibrant, compelling and highly revealing; they lay bare not just the personal accounts of the people who came out but the reactions of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, work mates and others to whom they ‘came out.’ That tells us a lot about our society; it exposes who we are and how we behave towards others, especially those we love or are supposed to love.
Outings is not a play; the four people on stage tonight did a vastly good job at acting (rather than just reading the scripts) bringing each of the characters to life and making them into real people by giving them credible voices. Neither was it a documentary or a lecture. Many kinds of individuals came across in the stories: women, men, young, old… they all told of what they did to reveal their sexual orientation to those around them, the reactions they got from others and the impact of their revelations on their lives and those of their nearest and dearest.
Most of the stories were monologues, except where two or more of the actors enhanced the story by acting out moments of dialogue. It was cleverly done and the two hours of drama and comedy never had a dull moment; it was always gripping, sometimes tear-jerking, now and then side-splittingly funny but always insightful and moving.
Our four actors had a real knack of bringing the story-tellers to life and giving them colour and presence. The stories hopped from man to woman, from teenager to older married man, to someone born into the ‘wrong’ body, to a straight woman who had married a gay man, to a footballer who had to battle with a homophobic sport, to a teacher who told a class of eight year olds that he was gay… if you did not know these were true stories you would be forgiven for thinking they had all been made up. Truth is stranger than fiction.
The media has, in recent years, presented us with several high-profile coming out events: swimmer Tom Daley, footballer Justin Fashnu, rugby player Gareth Thomas, Apple boss Tim Cook, actress Ellen Page, Prison Break star Wentworth Miller, the list goes on and on. Tonight’s stories were not about celebrities;they were from ordinary, sometimes extraordinary, people living humdrum lives in a variety of situations. What tonight’s show does remarkably well is to reflect back to ‘straight’ people how they deal with coming out. Society has a lot to learn.
Outings is at Curve on 25th and 26th February.