Theatre review: After the Act

Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation whose phrasing is so vague it seems to have been drafted by people who don't understand any of the words in it may be recent news in the UK, but unfortunately it's hardly without precedent: That sense of déjà vu comes from Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which passed on a wave of "won't somebody think of the children?" moral panic and ended up, in practice, banning teachers from acknowledging to their students that gay people existed, even when those students were clearly dealing with a crisis of their own sexuality. The latest of David Byrne's (not that one) transfers from the New Diorama to the Royal Court deals with Section 28's toxic legacy, but while it's a subject I think is always worth revisiting and educating people on, for me Billy Barrett and Ellice Stevens' After the Act, a play with music composed and performed (with Calie Hough) onstage by Frew, feels the strain of expanding to a bigger stage.

It's not described in the blurb as a verbatim musical but it certainly sets to music a lot of actual speeches, as well as personal testimonies we're led to infer are real as well - including from a pair of crusading lesbians who famously ended up under Nicholas Witchell on the Six O'Clock News, and probably now think of the newsreader about as warmly as Charles III does.

Barrett directs and Stevens performs alongside Ericka Posadas, Zachary Willis and understudy Chad Saint Louis in a show that traces the circumstances that manufactured a witch hunt around a famously dull children's book designed to stop kids being bullied for having same-sex parents. It's mixed with the queer community's vocal protests at a law the press were happy to quietly let pass as it enabled their own right-wing rhetoric to go unchallenged. It's all urgent and needed, but I'm not convinced it's been turned into art.

It becomes quickly apparent through the music, which sets the words to synth-pop, but doesn't necessarily turn them into songs. Lengthy speeches are sung, seemingly unedited, in numbers that rarely resolve themselves into a tune. If London Road made it look easy, After the Act is here to prove it's hard. The word that kept coming to mind was "clumsy," both in the songs and the general undiluted tone of anger that doesn't allow any of the personal testimonies to emotionally engage us.

The latter does improve slightly in the second act and the stories - from a gay man who attempted suicide at 15 at school, with the staff still not feeling able to confront the bullying that led to it; and a teen who would now be understood as non-binary, and was put through "conversion" therapy by their church - hit home. (This act does also start with Stevens putting on a Thatcher wig though, and regular readers will both know how easily I'm put off by low-hanging comedy fruit.) Well-intentioned and well-performed, but for me its scrappy energy doesn't translate to this stage.

After the Act by Billy Barrett, Ellice Stevens and Frew is booking until the 14th of June at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Alex Brenner.