Theatre review: Gypsy Queen

Writer/performer Rob Ward seems to have found a niche for himself with plays about gay sportsmen; a few years ago he co-wrote and acted in monologue Away From Home, about a gay footballer in a secret relationship, and now he takes on solo writing duties while sharing the acting with Ryan Clayton in a story where the relationship is still secret, but the sport’s much more up-front about its aggressive side. In Gypsy Queen Clayton plays Dane “The Pain” Samson, a promising boxer, openly gay in his father’s gym where he trains, and where everyone pretty much accepts this; but wary about his sexuality being known more generally, and worried that one sports reporter in particular keeps sniffing around it. Ward is “Gorgeous” George O’Connell, from an Irish traveller background, who bare-knuckle boxes in pub car parks until Dane’s father talent-spots him and invites him to turn professional.

Theatre review: Away From Home

Sometimes an issue becomes so widely discussed that a number of responses to it come up all at once. And so for the second time this year I'm at a play about the conspicuous lack of a single openly gay professional footballer in a country where gay rights and visibility have come on in leaps and bounds in almost every other area. Where The Pass looked at what that kind of life might do to the closeted player himself, Rob Ward and Martin Jameson's Away From Home looks at the effect on someone who loves him. Jameson directs, and Ward plays Kyle, a Liverpudlian rent boy who narrates the story of the last couple of years of his life, to someone he's just slept with. A football fan himself, he's shocked to find his latest client is a well-known footballer who's just signed for his team's local rivals, so will be around in the city a lot for the foreseeable future.