***** (5 stars)
“a sparkling jewel of the Fringe!”
The multi five star and Bobby award winning hit of the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe returns for the 2025 Festival following a sold-out tour and retains its five-star status taking up residence at the Friesian venue in the basement of the McEwan Hall as part of Underbelly at Bristo Square could not be a more fitting venue.
Written by Ned Blackburn and directed by Meg Bowron & Josh Stainer it sees Blackburn returning to the role of Johnny a conflicted 18-year-old student at an all-boys school somewhere in middle England where academic excellence and rugby are the order of the day. The problem is Johnny is gay and more than happy with it and seeks to explore his sexuality while constrained by the rotten and aft dark masculinity around him.
Enter Harry (Harvey Weed who excels at playing every other character in the play) who is everything a private school boy in his prime should be except Harry and Johnny have sex any chance they get and despite numerous same sex sexual partners Harry isn’t gay or so he says! What follows isn’t so much a coming-of-age story but a reflection of one mans journey through life and self-discovery as Johnny grapples with Grindr, masculinity acceptance of queerness in spite of being forced to live in an institution that’s dripping in shame and has left a generation of gay men to pick up the pieces in later life.
Both Ned Blackburn and Harvey Weed turn in flawless performances in a tightly directed and engaging semi biographical hour of dark drama laced with comedy to captures the audience from the moment the curtain rises. The real quality is in the writing it truly feels as if Blackburn has borne his soul and creatively, we are all the better for it.
An Adequate Abridgement of Boarding School Life as a Homo is a sparkling jewel of the Fringe and it remains as resonant to its audiences today as it ever has, taunt, funny, emotional and searingly honest this is unmissable theatre at its best.
An Adequate Abridgement of Boarding School Life as a Homo, Friesian at Underbelly, Bristo Square, Venue 302for info go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/an-adequate-abridgement-of-boarding-school-life-as-a-homo
ScotsGay Arts 