27/08/26

Pleasance Dome (Ace Dome), Edinburgh

Set in the 1990s and based on real events, Sanctuary is a compelling play about the AIDS epidemic, offering a brand new perspective on those dark and dreadful days as the UK death toll neared its peak.

Michael (Matthew Tennyson) is ill. He’s moved from London into a remote Suffolk farmhouse, which owner Wendy is planning to turn into an AIDS hospice. She wants to provide a place where sufferers can die in dignity, away from judgement and stigma. Sadly, she’s met with local opposition, so there are currently only two patients: Michael and a trans woman, Mary, who is very close to death.

Michael isn’t too sick yet, but he is frightened and lonely, dithering about whether or not he should just pack up and leave. But then an elderly stranger (Richard Cant) appears in the kitchen. He’s a friend of Wendy’s, he says; he’s hoping she’ll be able to give his hair a trim. Michael is suspicious – and rightly so, it turns out, as the man reveals that, actually, Wendy has asked him to come. She’s worried about her young house guest and thinks that talking to an older homosexual might help.

She might not know much about planning permission or council licenses, but Wendy is canny when it comes to human connection. Although he bristles at first, Michael soon opens up to the unnamed man, sharing his anger, his fear, his shame. He talks about hedonism and drug-fuelled sex; about longing and lost love and the sickening number of funerals he’s been to. The stranger is gentle and understanding, offering just the slightest glimpse of hope…

It’s easy to see why Jacob Sparrow’s spare, uncompromising script caught the eye of the judges of the inaugural Leodis Prize for playwriting. Directed by Josh Seymour, the play is at once tender and raw, the artifice of its clever construction never overpowering its humanity.

There are only four more performances of Sanctuary at this year’s Fringe. Don’t miss your chance to see it!

4.8 stars

Susan Singfield