06/08/26

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh (Upstairs)

A wise man once remarked that ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.’ The same could be said of your first day at the Fringe. We book a particular show (this year it’s the pithily titled Buggers) and in we trot, fully prepared to be either entertained or horrified. Happily, this year the gods are smiling on us, because this play offers an encouraging opening salvo for the next three weeks of madness.

Artist and muse. It’s a familiar theme but Alistair Hall’s unflinching script treats its chosen subject with candour and vivacity. Francis (Hall) and George (Peter Clements) have just bumped into each other in a London pub. The year is 1963 and now, back at Francis’s gaff, the two of them embark on a night of booze-fuelled sex and pill-popping. Francis seems extremely sure of himself but the less experienced George, a petty criminal, needs to be encouraged to let his hair down. At first, he maintains that he doesn’t know Francis is an artist – quite a successful one as it happens – but later, Francis manages to get him to admit that he had known – and that, from now on, George must tell him no more lies.

Because Francis wants George to stay a bit longer – and what’s more, he’d like to do some paintings of him…

Of course, as the pieces fall into place we realise that these are Francis Bacon and George Dyer – and that, as their relationship develops across the years, it will result in the creation of a whole series of harrowing and visceral portraits – and a tragedy that will haunt Francis for the rest of his life.

Built around two extraordinary performances and tightly directed by Alice Wordsworth, Buggers is a powerful and eviscerating study of the pleasures and pitfalls of sexual attraction. It casts its gaze on the different ways in which ill-matched lovers can both empower and ultimately destroy each other. The simple staging has the two performers literally splashing about in a tin bathtub, whilst taking regular mouthfuls of whatever it is they’ve filled the bath with (I hope they’ve had their jags!). I should perhaps add a warning for those of a photosensitive nature – there are a couple of brief but very intense sequences featuring strobe lighting. You have been warned.

We leave the production feeling we’ve made a great choice for the start of Fringe 26, with this clever, acerbic treatise on class, art and the abuse of power.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney