What a Gay Day!
Tim Connery
Directed by Alex Donald
Jack Studio, part of the SE Fest.
Star rating: 4
This play is a straightforward first person account of Larry Grayson’s life featuring a bravura performance from Luke Adamson. He holds the audience in the palm of his hand for eighty minutes making sure that we laugh (a lot) sigh and even wipe away the occasional tear.
There’s a framing device about a medium which doesn’t add much but thereafter Adamson shifts seamlessly and repeatedly between Grayson, downstage performing to an audience to a much more thoughtful real life account of Grayson’s personal life and career mostly presented upstage. Adamson changes his voice and manner repeatedly as he morphs between the two personas. The script gives the performing Grayson dozens of outrageously funny double-entendres which Adamson times beautifully with a good line in knowing looks. At times the gestures begin to feel a bit samey and predictable but this is a pretty well observed account of how Grayson actually was.
Grayson specialised in camp comedy and it was a long time before this became acceptable to, for example, BBC audiences. And even when it did, he had the Gay Liberation Front on his back accusing him of presenting an unhelpful stereotype. Grayson never came out as homosexual simply claiming to be a “confirmed bachelor”. The closest friendship he ever had was with school friend Tom Proctor, who died in World War Two. And that loss is touchingly presented in this play. So is the relationship with his foster family, especially Fan his quasi-sister who brought him up and lived with him until she had to go into a nursing home. Adamson does Grayson’s affection for his native Nuneaton nicely too.
It’s warmly lit and the set and props are ingenious. Scattered round the stage are items of clothing and other items which Adamson picks up briefly, uses as the focus of a story and then packs them into a suitcase which he carries off at the end.
What a Gay Day is an entertaining, richly funny piece of theatre which also comes with poignancy. Grayson’s life wasn’t always easy – even though at one point he buys a Rolls Royce which he cannot drive but he enjoys sitting in it to eat his fish and chips.
Photograph credit: J Summerfield
