Grindr the Opera ★★★
There are some gay guilty pleasures that stick in our throats. And not in a good way. Eurovision, metallic shorts, and clacking fans in clubs are three that come to mind. However, Peter Bull’sGrindr the Opera, directed by William Spencer, is just the kind of niche naughtiness that we would willingly swallow as a salty snack with our Sex on the Beach.
Tom (Billy J Vale) is looking for some NSA fun on the Grindr app. Instead of a furtive and forgettable fumble, he meets nervous Devon (Santino Zapico) NHS sexual health worker who is ready to find love again after a long period of being single. A single night stretches into a year, and Tom finds himself sliding toward the comfort of married life.
Jack (James Lowrie) is, to use Grindr terminology, a cum slut. A prodigious octopussy grabbing at the shoals of sea men swimming in Grindr’s murky depths. But Jack still deserves the respect and dignity of consent. When he hooks up with Don (Dereck Walker) a repressed right-wing religionist who wants to punish Jack for being everything he hates about himself, Jack’s party almost comes to a terrible end.
In a suitably operatic twist, it turns out that all the men are connected in unforeseen ways. Grindr, embodied by Christian Lunn, has them all caught in his sticky web. It’s not an opera if the course of love runs smooth.
In the tiny Union theatre, the character Grindr looms over the other actors who pop in and out of four frames like the profile thumbnails of an app. Grindr is a malevolent chess player who wants to keep everyone stuck in checkmate. He is the most operatic character and the excellent Lunn suitably has the most operatic delivery in the songs. The rest of the less operatic, more musical theatre-style songs, have plenty of explicit fun in them. Erik Ransom’s lyrics barely even bother to use double entendres, and are at their ripest best in the choreographed capers of the sex scenes.
Overall Grindr the Opera feels like it’s working with a restricted budget but then part of the Grindr apps charm is that no-one on it looks like they would cost you more than a few cans of Stella. Grindr the Opera heartily grapples with the dilemmas of dating and hooking up online, it doesn’t shy away from its absurdity, dangers and or thrills and in this case, it delivers it in a package that has plenty of dirty grins.
Review by ANDREW HEBDENQueerguru Contributing Editor 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”
Labels: 2023, Andrew Hebden, Grindr The Opera, London, Peter Bull, review, Union Theatre, William Spencer
