TARGET MAN  ☆☆☆☆

The Kings Head Theatre has done it again – Target Man is timely and incisive and ignites a rage inside of you – this is LGBT theatre at its incendiary best.

We are introduced to Connor Woodhouse and Joel Nelson in the changing rooms of a premiership football club. Connor is the stammering young fanboy just brought in as reserve goalkeeper and for whom fame, fortune and even a place on the World Cup squad beckons. Joel is the seasoned professional footballer with a name and a profile who is cool about the ‘newbies’ and has outlasted many challenges to his position.

Surprisingly, writer Mark Starling  avoids a predictable plot of footie boy meets older boy who then end up in the dressing room showers. Nudity sells tickets its true but what is really satisfying is having carefully constructed narrative on which the politics (both personal and professional) of coming out in the last bastion of institutionalised homophobia are layered, teased, explored and ultimately help to lay waste to the whole shoddy edifice. The Professional Football Association has 4,000 members: there are no active professional male footballers in England who are openly gay. By avoiding the emotions of romance, you can stand back and focus entirely on the issues – dare I say it – how very Brechtian!?

No word is wasted, each one loaded with meaning and intended (and unintended) double entendres. A simple warm up exercise with a football is used as a vehicle for Joel and Connor to come out to each other. It’s a beautiful pin drop moment and shows that despite reservations and anger driven by fear, they are both brave young men. It is a staggering performance by William Robinson (who plays Connor). Connor is a study in stress and tension, when every word he utters needs to be previewed in his head. When Emma (Sian Martin) originally suggests he come out he explodes and all the pain and fear is expressed through his taught, pale facial features. William Robinson and director Laura Jayne Bateman really know how to generate this tension, and pull on it throughout the show like a thin rubber band. As Emma cleverly asks “When they write your book, what kind of book would you want the 10yr old Connor to read?” – no answer is forthcoming but the question is just allowed to hang there…..

The play also touches on issues around masculinity, competitiveness, social solidarity, commercialisation of the game, fame and celebrity, power of the media, duty of care and not least the competitive nature of sport when Joel says “We are not friends but rivals”. Joel (played by Mateo Oxley with an impressive emotional range) is often the voice of seasoned doubt and cynical caution. Someone for whom the distinction between being known as the gay footballer and a footballer who is gay is of huge importance. The parallels between actors and footballers coming out in an industry that relies heavily on public perception is quite striking and one that has deep points of crossover. In fact, for a queer theatre audience there could be parallels drawn with pioneers such as Ellen, Laverne Cox or even Tennessee Williams. Other names from recent football headlines enter your head as the show progresses such as Sala (the squabble over the £15M transfer fee before he was even buried), Pogba (racist abuse), and of course the phantom Twitter footballer who recently promised to come out at a press conference then didn’t saying “I’m not strong enough to do this”. These incidents reveal this play to be urgent and timely yet it never shies away from showing how that pressure can affect athletes who win or lose on their ability to have complete control and ability to focus their mental states.

Emma Harris is the agent who seems to run a business that specialises in the marginalised professional athlete end of the market including women’s football but up to now ‘no-one in the top flight league’. She proposes that Connor and Joel come out and be the first pro footballers to do it. Make a stand and spearhead a cross sport joint collective endeavour. Sian Martin plays her with a delightful duality- she has snake eyes and you constantly feel she might be a wolf in cashmere clothing. She quickly articulates what an agent is for (business, finance, commercial and sometimes the personal best interests of the footballer) She is articulate, persuasive, genial (camp even – as she calls them ‘babe’ or ‘darling’). Behind this veneer, however, there is a steely eye on the money. Nothing gets in the way of the deal. Later in the play when Connor is desperate to talk she says; “I’ve got a 4.30 meeting babe…” and runs out of the door.

As Connor’s media performances become more articulate, so does his anger. The new generation aren’t closeted with friends and family and they absolutely will not accept it in their professional lives. The stammer has long disappeared for his final, furious, goose bump speech and you leave the theatre disorientated, knots in your stomach and ready to join the revolution.

https://www.kingsheadtheatre.com/
Until August 24th 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