12/08/25

Underbelly, (Iron Belly), Edinburgh

Nathan Jonathan’s engaging 60-minute monologue is based on his own recollections. He tells the story of ‘David’ – a Jamaican-English teenager, who, after he and his mum suffer domestic abuse at the hands of his dad, is forced to move from the city of Manchester to an unspecified small northern town.

Dumped into a local school, where he literally doesn’t know anyone, David’s is the only non-white face in evidence. Perhaps inevitably, he suffers repeated bullying at the hands of the school’s hardcase, ‘Kevin.’

It’s the early noughties and, over the ensuing four years, David navigates his way through the trials of puberty, a disastrous first date with an Emo girl he’s fallen for, and the trials and tribulations of adapting to a newly burgeoning phenomenon: the internet. In one flashback, he cuts away from the scene depicting the incident that made his mum flee their home, promising us that he will return to it…

Jonathan is an engaging and fearless performer, racing energetically back and forth across the stage of Iron Belly as he takes on a whole gaggle of characters, slipping into different accents, as he demonstrates the many pitfalls that lie in wait for luckless strangers in small towns. It’s not all dark and despairing. A scene where Jonathan goes through a series of noughties dance routines has me laughing in recognition.

There’s no doubting the commitment of this young actor/writer, though I do think that, when he finally returns to that earlier scene, he pulls his punches somewhat. I’d prefer to see the scene addressed full-on, the true horror of the situation stripped bare, thus offering catharsis to the audience.

Nevertheless, A Small Town Northern Tale is an impressive debut, one that explores racial identity without ever falling into the pitfalls of cliché.

4 stars

Philip Caveney