Illegal drugs! They can be such fun – until addiction takes over and starts to derail your life of course. This is the jumping off point for GHBoy by Paul Harvard, an admonitory tale about the thrills of the East London chemsex scene. 

Robert (played by Jimmy Essex) is a young man for whom the illicit pleasures of anonymous hook-ups and extended sex sessions has started to pall, and he feels trapped in a cycle of substance abuse and infidelity. The scene is awash with drugs with names like Tina, GHB, and Special K; “Its less scary if you make them sound like a drag queen!”

Robert seeks out a couple of quite brutal and harsh sexual encounters with the convincingly ‘dominant tops’ Devon and Josh. Both these characters are played by Sylvester Akinrolabu, whose very stage presence and ability to generate an atmosphere of raw sexual lust (that can flip into threat at the drop of a jockstrap) lifts and energises the entire piece.

The loss of his father, an unexpected proposal of marriage from his hot new Catalonian boyfriend Sergi (played with an exuberant honesty by the delicious Marc Bosch) and other changes within the firmament of his family and friends including best friend Jasminder (Aryana Ramkhalawon) means he realises that the love and acceptance he craves is all at risk. 

Robert is alarmed by press reports about a number of murders in east London (reminiscent of real-life serial killer Stephen Port – gleefully dubbed the ‘Grindr Killer’ by the press). In addition, there is a sinister figure that plagues Roberts dreams. Geoff Aymer portrays this supernatural figure which appears as Roberts moral conscience at moments of stress. Like the ghost of Christmas Future, he seems to both frighten and tempt Robert adding to his escalating mental health crisis.

These events are the catalyst which leads Robert to seek help from art therapist Simon (Devesh Kishore), but it is a process that reveals a terrible past trauma “buried deep within his subconscious”.

GHBoy joins a growing list of plays that uses chemsex as their backdrop, but it does have a novel approach in that it celebrates the power of therapy to address these addictions – salvation through art. Director Jon Pashley has created an atmospheric piece with clearly defined characters, and manages to keep the pace up, although too many short scenes (in what is already, thematically, a busy play) make it disjointed and drains the impact from the more powerful moments. Also, what could have been a very tricky thrust stage configuration, (necessitated by a socially distant capacity issue, one suspects) actually worked really well for the play and the intimacy of the stage placing never faltered.

GH BOY ☆☆☆
Produced by James Quaife
Charing Cross Theatre
3 - 20 December 2020

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

P.S. You may also like to check this out too :

https:// queerguru.com/paul-harvard-talks-about-his-powerful-new-queer-drama-ghboy-on-the-eve-of-its-london-premiere/