PRESENT LAUGHTER ☆☆☆☆
THE OLD VIC, LONDON

There is no hotter actor in the UK at the moment than the openly gay Irish Andrew Scott. His recent portrayal of the love interest priest for Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character in the wildly popular and critically acclaimed Fleabag has shot Scott to the top.

He appears in this comic play by Noel Coward as a famous actor called Garry Essendine. It charts the trials and tribulations of a as Garry prepares to go off on a tour of Africa and we see him attempting to prevent series of farcical events spinning out of control as he tries to manage the fallout from his libidinous affairs, an obsessed fanboy playwright, ex-wife and martyred secretary.

It’s very funny, the audience laughed non-stop and this production has a fantastic momentum that builds remorselessly as the narrative plays out. The level of energy Scott brings to the role is astounding – he is without doubt the sun around which all other characters orbit and it is certainly a departure from the Sherlock or Bond villain many will know him from. What’s really exciting for an LGBT audience is that some characters have been changed in order to make it a rather more queer production.

Director Matthew Warchus  proposed the change of the gender of some characters. This doesn’t massively alter Garry’s character as there are discreet references to both male and female lovers already in the text but it does allow an explicit on stage pan sexual representation especially where Joanna Lyppiatt becomes Joe Lyppiatt (played by Enzo Cilenti) who suddenly needs a place to crash – lips lock as the lights go down!

Present Laughter is a sparkling production and an absolute tonic during a rainy British summer.

https://www.oldvictheatre.com
Until August 10th 2019

REVIEW : JONNY WARD

Jonny Ward, Queerguru Contributing Editor is a drama graduate but has worked backstage for many years at venues such as The ROYAL ALBERT Hall, The 02, Southbank Centre and is currently at The National Theatre. He lives in Hoxton, London and is delighted to check out the latest, the hottest and the downright dodgy in queer culture for Queerguru. (P.S. He is currently single)  @JonnyWard360