Joyfully Grimm – Reimagining a Queer Adolescence
★★★★☆ Hopeful
Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30): Wed 31 Jul – Sat 24 Aug 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
Joyfully Grimm – Reimagining a Queer Adolescence at the Scottish Storytelling Centre is a winning combination of personal reminiscence, politics and traditional tales which is understatedly poetic and utterly convincing.
James Stedman’s one-person show is an exploration of growing up in the 1980s and 90s, when the coming of Clause 28 (later Section 2A of the Local Government Act) preventing local authorities from ‘promoting homosexuality’, cast a long shadow.
James Stedman and Frog. Publicity image.
This pernicious piece of legislation was so ill-thought-out that it meant schools were frightened of even discussing the subject, or preventing homophobic bullying. It needs to be remembered today, particularly to shame those political parties and newspapers who were so in favour, and so repellent in their attitudes, and would rather this wasn’t mentioned.
The general lack of anger from Stedman comes across as strange at first, but that just means that when the bite does come it has all the more impact. Throughout, Stedman has a warm, approachable demeanour, gently humorous and apparently unassuming. Which doesn’t mean he is anything other than deadly serious about what he is doing, or the message he is putting across.
He has a gift for storytelling; this is also a production where his script and Molly Naylor’s direction have been worked on so carefully that the end result is entirely natural, as if Stedman was just having a chat. Indeed, it is one of those performances where the actor seems to be talking to you individually, so immediate is the effect. There are some projections – and a toy frog – but otherwise he needs little help.
horribly reminiscent
The cleverness of the writing should not be underestimated, however. Stedman’s own life is interlinked with the political events, and (as the play’s title suggests) with fairy tales, notably The Frog Prince. He declares that the stories told in childhood should represent everyone’s lives, and be ‘joyous, free and queer’.
Of course – and it shouldn’t be much of a spoiler to anybody – the pre-Disneyfied versions of those stories may not be as resolutely straight as the Daily Mail might like to imagine they were.
With the bile directed at trans people being horribly reminiscent of what took place in the Section 28 ‘debate’, this is a necessary production on many levels, as well as being satisfying artistically.
Running time: 55 minutes (no interval)
Scottish Storytelling Centre (Netherbow Theatre), 43-45 High St, EH1 1SR (Venue 30)
Wednesday 31 July – Saturday 24 August 2024
Even dates only (not 14): 3.15pm
Details and tickets at: Book here
Website: www.jamesstedmanplays.com
Facebook: @james.stedman.39
Instagram: @jamesstedmanplays
Grimm, not grim, Frog… Publicity image.
ENDS
