Theatre review: Beautiful Thing

Not that I've been at this for a while or anything, but you can read a review of the 20th anniversary production of Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing on this blog, and now here's the 30th anniversary one, and a fresh look at the play that's in essence one that knows the script's strengths and plays to them. The fresh look is in the casting, which director Anthony Simpson-Pike wanted to allow young gay black kids to see themselves reflected in the characters. The only change I noticed in the script was a quick reference where Sandra asks Jamie if he's being bullied racially. Other than that the story's still as written, and very much in the early Nineties - in fairness I'm not sure how you could try to update jokes about Wincey Willis, let alone the specific point of gay history that inspired Harvey to write this rainbow-tinted play.

15-year-old Jamie (Rilwan Abiola Owokoniran) lives on a Thamesmead estate with his single mother Sandra (Shvorne Marks.) He's skipped PE class again, and she's had a call from his teacher about it, which has prompted this argument about him being bullied.

In the flat next door lives Jamie's classmate Ste (Raphael Akuwudike,) much more sporty and popular at school, but with a rough home life - his father and older brother regularly beat him up, and on those nights Sandra lets him stay over, sleeping top-to-toe in Jamie's bed. This is when the two get to know each other better, and their friendship starts to turn into a first romance.

The other characters are Sandra's try-hard boyfriend Tony (Trieve Blackwood-Cambridge) and the neighbour on the other side, Leah (Scarlett Rayner,) who was kicked out of school and filled her time by developing an all-encompassing obsession with Mama Cass. And it's a uniformly strong cast that finds their own take on their characters without them feeling unfamiliar. Rayner's Leah is abrasive but also a lost little girl, Blackwood-Cambridge's Tony nearly a decade younger than his girlfriend, and so desperate to exude cool that he's instantly the naffest person on the planet.

As the biggest personality on the stage, Marks very quickly lets us know that Sandra can be harsh and even cruel (Harvey does like a trope where his mums slut-shame their female neighbours on no apparent evidence a bit too much, Sandra's regular "slag!" to Leah is reminiscent of Debbie Doonan's "Reba... slut") but that it comes from a real place of love and protectiveness.

And the central romance really gets the way the two boys complement each other (something I don't think the film managed.) Ste might be the popular one at school, and the protective one outdoors, but Owokoniran (a great late addition to the cast after another actor had to drop out at the last minute) shows how, once they acknowledge their feelings for each other, he's the strong one who's not afraid to embrace the camper side of his queerness (this is the funniest take I've seen on his encyclopaedic knowledge of The Sound of Music.)

Phill was with me a decade ago for the last revival, and he commented in the interval that he didn't remember it being this funny. We both thought the cast's comic timing was great, and looking back at my earlier review I can see that's precisely what we thought was missing then. So Simpson-Pike's vision of the play is a win-win: The cast might make a new and different generation feel seen by Harvey's frequently-harsh but essentially loving world, but its essence remains the same. Hailing from a time when being gay and AIDS were still inextricably linked in people's minds (even this sunny play makes a couple of nods to this,) he offers up an optimistic gay love story with a lot of filthy laughs.

Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey is booking until the 7th of October at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

Running time: 2 hours including interval.

Photo credit: The Other Richard.