★★★ Alright Bitches | Let’s go on a trip to Gran Canaria via Above the Stag Theatre in their newly-penned play ‘Alright Bitches.’
It’s exactly what you would expect from a play with that name at a theatre which produces the campiest shows in town (written by Martin Blackburn). We’re in Gran Canaria, where the boys do their shopping, clubbing, picking up and shagging all in the same place – the Yumbo Centre.
And not far from the Yumbo Centre is Los Hombres (The men). It’s a gay guesthouse but not primarily gay male and clothing optional. But for one week the guests at Loa Hombres include alcoholic and uptight Jason (Anton Tweedale), who’s not very happy to be there, and his young boy toy boyfriend Ollie (Grant Cartwright), as well as Garth (Ethan Chapples) and his best friend and flat mate Max (Lucas Livesey). Also along for the ride is Garth’s very good friend Pam (the fierce Hannah Vesty). And what do you get when you mix two horny gay couples with a women who’s also looking for it? Lots of sex jokes, and drama, and fights, and everything you would expect from a show such as this.
You see Ollie is supposedly in love with Jason for who he is, and not because he’s a successful closeted banker. But Garth fancies Ollie, meanwhile there’s a bit of bad chemistry between Jason and Max, who’s has a towel that reads ‘Only Gay on the Beach’ – as if. But it’s Pam from Milton Keynes who provides all the laughs (“I’m menstrual and it’s a fool moon”), putting up with the boys antics while at the same time filling her mom in with her holiday antics and gossip on her mobile phone.
There are lots of funny lines – “the barbed wire around the complex – is it to keep them out or us in?’ and in reference to Garth spending his time in some of the insalubrious places there, Max asks “Were you in the darkroom developing photos.?”
To thicken the plot, there’s something strange about the man who is alone in his bungalow across the way – is he a serial killer? It all makes for a week full of tension and implied sex among the men at this guesthouse that, from the outside that we get to see that is the set, looks like any typical guesthouse in Gran Canaria.
Enjoy the laughs and try not to groan when some of the jokes don’t hit, for it’s a holiday that you’ll probably forget. And give Vesty her own show – she’s fabulous!
Alight Bitches is playing at Above The Stag until 21st Feb,
