Our Martin in the Background * * * *

Scottish Storytelling Centre.

I’m not sure how I missed this gem at the 2025 Festival Fringe, but last week, Mark Kydd returned to Edinburgh for a special LGBT+ History Month and Valentine’s Day performance of his self-penned monologue, Our Martin in the Background, to a full house at the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

Appealing to an older audience and presented in a style reminiscent of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, this hour-long monologue introduces Martin, a gay man from Lancashire, who, during World War II, lands a small extra role when a film crew arrives in town to shoot Brief Encounter, Noel Coward’s iconic love story starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.

At eighteen, Martin shares his own brief encounter with Hugh, an older married extra on the set. He even befriends Celia Johnson, who suggests to director David Lean that the two men be sent to the London studios as background actors. Away from home, their bond deepens.

Yet, nine months later, Hugh discovers his wife is pregnant and dutifully returns to Lancashire, leaving Martin to pursue a theatre career. They share a final farewell on a platform at Euston Station, echoing a scene from the film.

By chance, in the 1960s, the men cross paths again in London—an encounter even more poignant than their doomed wartime romance.

Mark Kydd’s flawless Lancashire accent and his delivery, rich in both humour and emotion, kept me captivated. With the addition of an evocative period soundtrack, I was spellbound, moved almost to tears by the end.

For those of us growing up in the shadow of World War II and especially in Scotland where homosexual acts were only decriminalised in 1981, Martin’s story reminds us of the isolation and loneliness experienced by queer people and that we should not take our current rights and social acceptance for granted.

Robert Malcolm Contributing Editor Edinburgh He is a trained architect and interior designer who relocated from London to his home town of Edinburgh in 2019. Under the pen name of Bobby Burns he had his first novel, a gay erotic thriller called Bone Island published by Homofactus Press in 2011.