Theatre review: Cowbois

Considering that attempting a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon amid rolling rail strikes is a bit of a coin-toss, I decided not to book for the RSC's Cowbois last year, fairly confident that we'd get a chance to see it transfer to London. Given the creative team I would have guessed the Globe, but instead the Royal Court gets Charlie Josephine's queer fantasy Western. Co-directed by Josephine and Sean Holmes, whose signature style of letting the actors use their own accents even in plays where you'd expect a very specific one means the Wild West is populated with voices from every corner of the UK and Ireland, the action takes place in a little town built on principles of acceptance and equality. Whether that's how it actually plays out when the men are around is a different story, but right now they're not: Most of the men left over a year ago to go prospecting for gold, and with no word from them and news of a cave-in, they're presumed dead.

In her husband's absence Miss Lillian (Sophie Melville) runs the town's saloon, where the women of the town (plus the only adult male, Paul Hunter's Sheriff Roger Jones) gather and fret over whether they'll get any supplies or a new pastor.

Into this secluded world comes the notorious bandit Jack Cannon (Vinnie Heaven,) who’s on a mission of revenge but needs to rest up for a while where the law can’t find him. The women are all quite taken by the outlaw, but it’s Lillian who ends up in an affair with someone who isn’t quite like the other men: Although they don’t have the terms for it, it’s fairly common knowledge that Jack wasn’t born a man, and if anything that’s added much to his fearsome reputation and mystique. While Jack’s in town the residents start to discover themselves, from one of the women starting to think she might actually be a they, to the alcoholic Sheriff managing to kick the booze. Also a couple of nights with Jack seems to have left Lillian several months pregnant, and nobody knows what that’s all about for any number of obvious reasons.

Josephine gives their cast time to really establish themselves before Jack arrives, making for a show that quickly sets its stall with broad comedy: Widow Mary (Bridgette Amofah) is dedicated to her son The Kid (Lemuel Ariel Adou, Alexander Joseph or Philip Kamau) while Lucy (Lee Braithwaite) starts to wonder if “tomboy” is really quite the way they see themselves. But the early scenes are stolen by the repressed duo of Emma Pallant’s fiercely religious Sally Ann and Lucy McCormick’s bored schoolmistress Jayne, fanning themselves all over at the very suggestion of anything scandalous. Over the course of the story Sally Ann fights hard to stay under control, while Jayne takes great pleasure in letting go of it.

When Jack finally arrives, Heaven’s arch performance and outrageous flirting fit right into the overall camp tone of the evening – after last year’s notoriously misjudged comedy flop, Cowbois provides the big laughs that the Royal Court Downstairs was sorely missing from Mates In Chelsea. The only time this energy dips is when Lillian’s husband Frank (Shaun Dingwall) returns along with the other cis men thought dead, and their intentions to create an open-minded utopia in their little town are put to the test by the new normal.

It’s an intrusion of a more old-fashioned kind of masculinity that makes things take a sour turn, but ultimately Josephine’s vision is an optimistic one, and one that makes sense of the Western metaphor: Trans and other communities who differ from the accepted norms having to keep barricading up and fighting as there’ll be another wave of attacks coming, but ultimately winning one battle at a time. It’s an attitude that sees the second act soon return to the comic highs of the first, with new dynamics including Julian Moore-Cooke’s James initially aggressive, eventually just gently baffled, at his fiancée Lucy being replaced by some bloke called Lou, and a cameo from another trans cowboy in the form of LJ Parkinson’s psychotic bounty hunter Charley. Cowbois feels like a textbook example of how you don’t need to sacrifice the heart and politics of a piece to make it an unambiguously entertaining, raucously funny evening.

Cowbois by Charlie Josephine is booking until the 10th of February at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ali Wright / Henri T.