Fast Love
Lion & Unicorn Theatre, 2nd July - 5th July 2019
No one said growing up was easy, whatever your gender or sexual orientation, but you’d be mistaken in thinking that a straight mans navigation through his adolescence has anything like the same challenges a gay man will encounter whilst trying to find his own identity in a predominantly straight society. Jack Albert Cook’s play Fast Love does an impressive job in highlighting this sometimes exhausting struggle of both coming to terms with yourself whilst simultaneously trying to work out your place, not only in the straight society that surrounds you, but also the community you are attempting to make a connection with. He does this by having the plays central character Rory (played by Jeremy Franklin) tell us his story from a young, innocent, excitable 7 year old to a more cynical & disillusioned 25 years old. There is much that resonates in this ‘everyman’ story of growing up gay, and despite the struggles Rory finds himself dealing with, Cook still manages to bring plenty of humour into the snappy dialogue of the first half of the play. “My balls hadn’t dropped and I already knew I wanted them in another mans mouth” Rory recalls from his youth. Through his eyes we are reminded of those awkward first kisses, our first queer crushes, discovering porn across a painfully slow dial up internet connection and the music that produced the soundtrack to it all, this being Duffy’s album Rockferry in Rory’s case.
Throughout these lighter moments however we are never far from being reminded of Rory’s desperate struggle to conform, to find love and to be loved. and despite todays social media promise that ‘It does get better”. it is surprising to be reminded just how little the very real physical and emotional struggles for young gay men have changed in the last forty years, except, that is, for the (in)convenience of Grindr. Franklin’s wide eyed youth is joined on stage for the majority of the play by the very physical, sprite like presence of Sven Ironside, who plays the multiple number of characters Rory recalls during the telling of his story. Ironside’s physical dexterity is matched by Franklin’s linguistic prowess, as it falls on his shoulders to carry this mostly monologue style script, which he does engagingly thoughout. Both actors feel perfectly cast in their roles, and the way they move around the stage is exceptionally well realised by director Monty Leigh, both characters making the most of the relatively sparse staging and lighting. These energetic performances were only occasionally hindered by a couple of misplaced breaks in the forth wall, where a couple of flirtatious gestures towards the audience felt strangely at odds with the otherwise tightly honed script, which a bit more faith in might have avoided these occasional, rather clumsier laughs.
That being said, Jack Albert Cook is definitely not in the game of sugar coating the less palatable paths of our coming out journeys, and it’s this refreshingly honest writing, almost confessional in it’s delivery, that brings us emotionally ever closer to the main characters plight, realised through Leigh’s inventively stylised approach in the telling of Rory’s story. For those reasons Fast Love is not always a comfortable watch, but it is an important one which will resonate strongly with anyone who has faced the many highs and lows of growing up gay. I won’t spoil the end, suffice to say that by the time the lights have dimmed for the final time. you can’t help but wish that Rory’s journey had been a little bit easier and, with further reflection, that maybe all our experiences of growing up gay should really have been a little bit easier too.
★★★★
