Josie Rourke kicks off her final full year in charge of the Donald and Margot Warehouse with a revival of Peter Gill’s
The York Realist, a play I’ve seen before and which, especially in Robert Hastie’s quality-cast production, feels like watching a quietly revolutionary piece of gay theatre, largely because it
isn’t, at heart, a “gay play.” It’s sometime in the 1960s and George (Ben Batt) is a farmer living a long bus ride away from York, where he’s been cast in a community production of the York Mystery Plays. He doesn’t have a phone so, when he misses a few rehearsals in a row, assistant director John (Jonathan Bailey) travels up to his house in person to find out why. He does manage to convince George to stay in the production, and his belief in his acting talent seems to be genuine, but he’s got another motive for coming all that way and soon the pair’s obvious attraction sees them disappear into George’s bedroom while his mother sleeps.
