Theatre review: Something in the Air

Veteran playwright Peter Gill's latest play could be said to join the ranks of the new generation of AIDS stories most prominently including It's A Sin and Cruise, although its focus is slightly different: Part of the theme of those stories has been the generation of queer elders who barely exist because of the pandemic of the 1980s and '90s wiping them out, but Something in the Air brings us a pair of men who've survived into old age and, with the rest of their community long-gone, have found some comfort in each other. Colin (Ian Gelder) and Alex (Christopher Godwin) live in the same retirement home where they've become friends and, to the consternation of Alex's son Andrew (Andrew Woodall,) have started holding hands while they sit in their armchairs. Colin's niece Clare (Claire Price) is more sanguine about it, and in fact has some news for Andrew: The pair have asked to be moved into the same room, but as they're not always lucid, it needs to be run by their families.

Alex in particular seems to be quite far gone with dementia; he barely speaks, and when he does he calls his son by the wrong name.

But the play also lets us into the men's inner monologues, which are much more lively and focused than their outward appearances. Each of them is conjuring a great lost love from their youths: Colin remembers Gareth (Sam Thorpe-Spinks,) while Alex addresses Nicholas (James Schofield.) Occasionally they interact with the actors playing these memories, recreating remembered conversations, but for the most part they soliloquise to the audience, reliving their first meetings and the lasting friendships after their sexual relationships ended.

The play dips in and out of these monologues as well as into the modern-day discussion between Clare and Andrew, meaning it asks the audience to piece together a lot of what's going on. After a confusing start I think I got a handle on who was who after about 20 minutes, but that clearly wasn't the case for everyone: Ian's first words on the way out were "so... who died?" and other audience discussions seemed to be along the same lines.

It doesn't help that it feels like a radio play - it would certainly be a confusing one, but Gill and Alice Hamilton's production does little to change that anyway. The shallow, wide stage and central characters confined to their chairs can't have helped, but even so there could have been more done to bring a bit of movement to the stage. The younger men in particular feel like a missed opportunity - they're onstage almost throughout without much to do, and are only really engaged with at all on the rare occasions when the older characters interact with their memories. The rest of the time the directors just have them sitting at the sides scribbling in notebooks - suitably romaticised Byronic figures in memory perhaps, but missing out on the one chance to bring the older men's vivid speeches to life. But they're not required to react to anything, and Gareth doesn't even leave the stage when he dies.

Not that there aren't positives in these lyrical reminiscences, and Gelder and Godwin beautifully portray the contrast between the tired, disengaged exteriors and the lively interiors that are still very much there - perhaps all that's really there. But the production fails to bring them to life in any other way, leading not only to some problems with clarity, but also to never really expressing the spark that means these memories still shine bright even when everything else is gone.

Something in the Air by Peter Gill is booking until the 12th of November at Jermyn Street Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 5 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Steve Gregson.