27/08/23

Summerhall (Cairns Lecture Theatre), Edinburgh

Mark (Corey Montague-Sholay) wants to tell us his story…

When we first meet him, he’s standing behind the counter of the coffee shop where he works and he’s transfixed, frozen in terror, because Darren (William Robinson) has just walked in and he’s staring at Mark. It’s been four years since the two of them last laid eyes on each other.

And with that we go back to their very first meeting when they’re just fifteen years old. Mark is the new kid at school: reserved, studious, endearing – yet somehow entirely friendless. And Darren, he’s the quintessential troubled teen: rebellious, irreverent, dangerous in that indefinable way. He’s troubled by his own burgeoning sexuality, and the toxic relationship he endures with his father.

It’s clear from the boys’ very first meeting that something has sparked between Mark and Darren, something that begins to smoulder and which will eventually ignite with tragic consequences.

Written by Sophie Swithenbank and directed by Matthew Illiffe, Bacon is a whip-smart, tightly-constructed duologue that pulls me into its tenacious grip and holds me spellbound as the story unfolds, cutting back and forth between the two boys’ home lives, their developing relationship, their triumphs and disasters. The lines of dialogue run together, the two characters starting and ending each other’s sentences.

Natalie Johnson’s simple but effective set is a huge see-saw, rising and falling as the power dynamic fluctuates. The two performances are extraordinarily powerful and the play’s conclusion is quite simply shattering.

It would be hard to imagine a play more perfectly suited to the Fringe. Once again, I find myself wishing I had seen this earlier so I could trumpet its brilliance.

5 stars

Philip Caveney