**** (4 stars)
“It’s not just gay, it’s very gay!”
I spent a delightful evening in the company of Niall and Tom, master storyteller and long-suffering musician and hater of puns, who combine to present an entertaining re-visioning of the mediaeval legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The original tale is in many respects pretty gay already, but mostly covertly. King Arthur is at Camelot, with his band of knights gathered at his round table for a feast to celebrate New Year’s Eve. The king decrees that the feast can’t begin until someone tells a tale of their courageous exploits: but all are silent. Maybe some marvel, then?
A Green Knight, riding a green horse, enters and presents a challenge – take up my axe and strike a blow: then come to my chapel in a year and a day and I will return the blow. Gawain takes up the challenge, lifts the axe, and cuts off the Green Knight’s head. The Knight picks up his head and rides off, reminding Gawain of his promise to come to the Green Chapel in a year and a day…
Niall is a very good host, welcoming us to the Storytelling Centre’s Upper Room and assuring us that we would not be involved in any scary ‘audience participation’ – apart from that of the lovely Iain [whose agreement was gladly given] and whose noble efforts with the Green Giant’s head were warmly applauded. The rest of us could sit quietly, fanning ourselves with the fans offered on our way in, or enthusiastically join in whenever we were invited to create a soundscape, or otherwise add detail to the story.
I knew the rough outline of the story, including the ‘temptations’ of Gawain at the castle of lord Bertilak and how he neatly sidesteps them, either because the knight is either totally virtuous or completely naive. What I loved with this gorgeously [but gently] gay version is the way all the potential, covert, gay details were brought out of the closet and celebrated in all their glory.
Throughout the tale, Gawain knows he is different from all the others in the laddish atmosphere of Arthur’s court, but doesn’t know why: he just keeps silent. In the brilliantly inventive middle part of the tale [which the original author would undoubtedly have written if only he’d known it] Gawain is at an open mike poetry evening [don’t ask!] and delivers a beautifully sensitive, deeply moving poem in which he wishes he were a changeling. This alone is worth the ticket price, but there’s so much more!
Sea horses, a glorious, golden but shy goldfish, a bog witch, a lost cup, a portable oven and a pair of garden shears all play their part in this enchanting narrative. The language is wonderfully descriptive – I now have to go to Orkney to see the exact colour of the sea at sunset – and the invention magnificent, especially when Niall had to adapt his narrative to work with the audience-suggested name for Bertilak’s partner.
The solution was sheer brilliance. So was Gawain’s back story – how he arrived at court in Camelot, and [spoiler alert] the immensely satisfying revelation at the end of the narrative.
Yet more reasons to celebrate this fabulous show which continually celebrates difference, divergence, and being oneself, no matter what that looks and feels like.
The Green Knight (but it’s gay), George Mackay Brwon Library atScottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30) for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-green-knight-but-it-s-gay
ScotsGay Arts 