Queerguru is going to give our London crowd one last chance to make it to the Camden Fringe It ends on the 25th August. It is a great way to see lots of different material that is wallet friendly and alcohol adjacent. If you are a performer it is a way to perfect content in front of crowds who are willing members of the Try it You Might Like it Club.

Tonight’s offering was CAMP, an hour long production by the Bitter Theatre Company. It is hard to describe. Imagine a big lasagne, with lots of different flavored layers, that a cook is going to serve all in one go and let you decide what it is made of.

One layer is clearly satire. It imagines a world (maybe not so imaginary) where one has to earn one’s Gay Card at Camp by proving knowledge of LGBTQI+ history, culture, politics, music and iconography. The pressure is on our three attendees to show that they are woke enough to pass. And by pass it means they have to show a knowledge of every single letter of the acronym, no Ls and Gs gets to skip over the Bs or the Ts.

Amongst the satire is a deliberate element of teaching. There is an audience participation question and answer session. We hear about the life of 18th century lesbian pioneer Anne Lister (see Queerguru’s review of Gentleman Jack) and other familiar heroes. We also learn history that has been covered up. Are you familiar with Anne Frank’s yearnings about women that her father excised from her diary before publication? Do you know the names of the last two men who were hung for sodomy?

Comedy gets its own slew of flavors. A visual showdown between Lesbian Yoga and Gay Vogueing has a sly originality. Forbidden passion caught on CCTV raises some real belly laughs.

The sauce that runs all the way through is the fraught relationship between the three main characters as they seek to understand their differences. One is a lesbian who came late to the party via heterosexual marriage. Another is bisexual and feels accused of straight privilege from the gays yet still gets homophobia from the straights. And, of course, there is the gay, gay, gay boy who was the product of lesbian moms.

The final result is uneven. CAMP never quite decides how to play its audience. The prevalence of LGBTQI+ in-jokes does not quite fit with the overly explanatory class room like attempts to teach about what that means. In the end it means the tasty parts get overwhelmed.

CAMP ☆☆☆
LION & UNICORN THEATRE
Until August 24th

 

Review by Andrew Hebden

Queerguru Correspondent Andrew Hebden is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.