Tag: LGBTQ

Really Want to Hurt Me: Q&A with Ben SantaMaria

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In 2017, a School Report study published by Stonewall found that almost half of all LGBTQ pupils still face bullying, half regularly hear homophobic insults, and many suffer low self-worth, self-harm and attempt suicide. Writer and director Ben SantaMaria understands this all too well, having experienced it for himself growing up as a gay man in 80s Britain. Realising that these problems haven’t gone away for young people today, he wrote the autobiographical show Really Want to Hurt Me as a way to explore what has – and more importantly, hasn’t – changed since his own teenage years.

Following sold-out dates last year in London and Edinburgh, where it was shortlisted for the Brighton Fringe Award for Excellence, Really Want to Hurt Me recently embarked on a tour of the UK, performed by Ryan Price. As the tour got underway, we chatted to Ben about the show’s journey so far and the impact he hopes it will have for audiences over the coming months and beyond.

Can you sum up briefly what Really Want to Hurt Me is all about?

It’s a bittersweet and dark comedy with dance sequences that gives the audience an intimate sense of what it was like to grow up gay in the ‘80s. The story has a lot of parallels with the same challenges that young LGBTQ people are experiencing today. It follows the life of a schoolboy in Devon from 1984-86, as he lives through all the upheaval and self-discovery of his teen years, having to hide and repress his identity to survive the pressures of being bullied and being forced to conform. He escapes into the pop and indie music of the 80s era, which promises a more liberated life ahead for him, and into theatre to enjoy playing other characters instead of the false self he has been made to be in real life.

Why was this a story you wanted to tell, and why is now the right time to tell it?

It’s an autobiographical play, so I’d reached a point where something in my mind was telling me I needed to explore my past and work out how much what happened in my formative years is still affecting me. Short answer: it shaped me more than I even realised! But with all of the arguments about expanding education to be inclusive of LGBTQ people’s lives, and research still revealing how many young LGBTQ people continue to be bullied and hear negative messages about themselves that lead to isolation, low self-esteem and self-harm, the loneliness and traumas I experienced clearly haven’t vanished into the past as some relic of a bygone era. I think we need to honour and keep revisiting LGBTQ history to see what’s changed and what still needs to change for further progress.

What do you hope audiences will take away from seeing the show?

We’ve already taken the show to Exeter, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and in London to Soho Theatre, Theatre503 and the Old Red Lion. Audiences there have responded so positively and openly to the show, either LGBTQ people of my generation saying “that’s my story” or younger people telling us it reflected their lives. It’s also been brilliant to have non-LGBTQ people say that the show made them understand at an emotional level what their friends and family went through. I’d love audiences of all kinds to feel immersed in the schoolboy’s world and through that to reconnect with their own teenage years and any time they overcame feeling like an outsider.

What’s the show’s journey been to this point, and how have audiences responded to it so far?

It started out as a short scratch piece in 2017 when I was invited to contribute something for the Monday Club’s showcase at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in London, commemorating 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in England and Wales. So many of the acts there, whether spoken word, dance or film, all touched on the same issue of surviving school traumas, which just reinforced how much remains the same today. An Arts Council grant was the lifeline that led to all of those other show dates we clocked up last year. As the play’s so grounded in small-town life, away from the London stories we hear more often, it was important for me to take it on tour around the UK this year, back to the South West and all around.

What have been the biggest highlights and challenges since you began writing the play?

The highlights have been all of the venues we’ve visited and the ones on our tour this year. It’s absolutely incredible to me that my personal story has gone on this journey around the UK and had such beautiful responses from our audiences. The biggest challenge has been staying true to my Devon adolescence, making the boy’s story as intimate and honest for the audience as possible, and developing and redeveloping it until only the essential remains, to make it speak from the heart.

What are you most looking forward to about taking the show on tour?

I love visiting new venues and because the play’s partly about the huge importance of so-called ‘regional’ theatre, amateur dramatics and those drama teachers who give so many outsiders a sense of purpose when they’re growing up in their small towns, it’s really satisfying to be bringing it to lots of towns and cities where people can hopefully feel that their lives are reflected in this story. We’re also running free LGBTQ writing workshops at some of the venues – in Sheffield, Exeter, Harlow, Cheltenham and Nottingham. Anyone aged 14+ can book a place by contacting the venue and come along to try writing from their own life experiences, whether they’ve written before or not.

In your view, what can we as both a society and individuals do to combat the bullying and intimidation still faced by the LGBTQ community?

My experiences growing up tell me that what’s needed is a healthy sense of community to support those who are targeted as ‘other’ and ‘different’. Inclusive education that acknowledges the realities of everyone who’s in the classroom. Normalising peer protection – again, through education – instead of normalising bullying as something you just have to get through as a young person. It seems to me, having grown up in a period when bullying was even more pervasive, that we’re at a point now where great advances in inclusivity and diversity are smashing against another catastrophic surge in fascism and monoculture. Reaching out collectively, whether it’s helping others whenever it’s safe to or joining a larger group to tackle hate, is always the answer. As my play illustrates, you can’t thrive alone.

Really Want to Hurt Me is on tour around the UK until October – for details of dates and venues, visit flamingtheatre.co.uk.

Writer and director: Ben SantaMaria

Performed by Ryan Price

Review: Grotty at the Bunker Theatre

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As tours go, this one is not for the faint-hearted. Izzy Tennyson’s aptly named Grotty provides a rare opportunity to explore East London’s lesbian scene, but avoids any temptation to romanticise; this trip is not an advertisement, but a warts and all depiction of a community rarely seen on stage.

Our guide is 22-year-old Rigby, played by Tennyson, who’s relatively new to this world herself and experiencing something of a baptism of fire. As the play begins, she’s in a relationship with Toad (Rebekah Hinds), who’s older, more experienced and in possession of a significant amount of baggage. This includes ex-lover Natty (Anita-Joy Uwajeh), a persistent and unwelcome presence in Rigby’s life, and former fiancée Witch (Grace Chilton), an outcast whose dark sexual proclivities are the stuff of legend. Almost inevitably, it’s not long before Rigby and Witch’s paths cross, marking a new stage in Rigby’s emotional and sexual education, and establishing a complex triangular situation that is, to use her own word, more than a little grotty.

Photo credit: The Other Richard

Rigby herself is a fascinating creation: a twitchy, awkward figure who’s unafraid when addressing the audience to offer a sharp-tongued critique of both lesbian culture and the various personalities she meets within it, but often falls silent when joined by other characters who “outrank” her. Despite the community’s marginalised status both in society as a whole and within LGBTQ circles, there’s very little sense of unity or mutual support among its members, apart from when mocking outsiders who pretend to be gay because they think it makes them look cool. Instead Tennyson paints a picture of a claustrophobic, hierarchical world where everyone knows everybody else’s business – a sensation emphasised by Hannah Hauer-King’s direction, which places Rigby at the centre while the other characters observe her in silence from each side of the stage.

While the messy situation between Rigby, Toad and Witch forms the core of the narrative, the five-strong cast actually plays a total of nine characters between them, including straight friend Kate; a potential new love interest, Elliot, whose appeal seems to lie largely in the opportunity for Rigby to take the lead for once; and Dr Alexandra, whose analysis concludes that her patient is “suicidal, but not suicidal enough” to warrant treatment. There’s also a brief appearance from Clare Gollop as Rigby’s mother, in a late twist that sheds an interesting new light on all that’s gone before. We learn little about any of these women, who in many ways are more caricature than fully developed characters, but they do allow us a further insight into Rigby’s character, her mental health, and the ways in which she adapts her personality and manner to each new interaction in her quest to belong.

Photo credit: The Other Richard

There are some aspects of the play that don’t completely work: many of Rigby’s monologues are delivered so quickly that it’s hard to keep up or fully appreciate the savage humour of Tennyson’s writing, and the plot ends abruptly just as it reaches an interesting potential turning point (perhaps a sequel in the making?). That said, a look around at audience reactions is enough to confirm that Grotty does what it sets out to do: bring an often overlooked subculture into the spotlight in a way that’s both educational and inclusive.

Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉

Review: Turkey at The Hope Theatre

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I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but it’s been difficult to avoid the five-star hype surrounding Frankie Meredith’s debut play Turkey – so to say I went in with high expectations is a bit of an understatement. Fortunately, those expectations were more than met by this heartbreaking story of a young woman so desperate for a child she’s willing to risk everything – and everyone – to get it. Instantly gripping, a brilliant script, talented cast and skilful direction by Niall Phillips draw us into the lives of all three characters, and the play feels much shorter than its one-hour running time.

Madeline wants to have a baby with her girlfriend Toni – but first, they need to locate the necessary, ahem, ingredients. After an attempt to ask Toni’s brothers ends in disaster, Maddie has another candidate in mind: her dead ex-boyfriend’s dad, Michael. Shrugging off Toni’s concerns about her motives, she pays him a visit – and in doing so sets in motion a chain of events that might give her the one thing she always wanted… but at what cost?

Although the play, which was inspired by real events, is about a gay couple and sheds light on the challenges they face in their mission to become parents – challenges most heterosexual couples will never have to even think about – ultimately Turkey is so successful because there’s a lot more to all the characters than just their sexuality. Everyday dilemmas like which veg to buy, what to wear for a job interview and the struggle to get over the loss of a loved one mean all three are easy to relate to, and while we may not be able to like or support the things they do, we can at least understand where they’re coming from.

This is particularly true in the case of Madeline, largely thanks to Pevyand Sadeghian’s devastating performance. By rights, we should hate her, and while she undoubtedly causes much of her own – and others’ – suffering, she’s also totally convincing in both her love for Toni and her confusion over who she really is; it’s obvious that none of the damage she causes is intentional, but merely a byproduct of her personal turmoil.

At the other end of the scale, Harriet Green is instantly likeable as Toni. Bright, funny and devoted to both her job as a teacher and her domestic life with Madeline, she’s not particularly fussed about having a baby, but is willing to go along with it because she knows how much it means to her partner – a compromise that ultimately leaves her wide open to getting hurt. And finally, there’s Michael, played by Cameron Robertson, a “not quite yet ‘old’ older man”, who’s still broken by the loss of his son twelve years earlier. His obvious joy at having Madeline back in his life, however unexpectedly, is heartbreakingly poignant, even though we can see the warning signs of what’s about to happen a mile away.

Director Niall Phillips keeps the action moving along at a rapid pace, with short, sharp bursts of rock music separating each scene from the next. The cast all remain on stage throughout, their constant presence mere inches from the audience helping to compound the sense of impending doom, as events spiral out of Madeline’s control and her two lives come ever closer to collision.

Turkey may be Frankie Meredith’s first full length play, but let’s hope it’s not the last. A beautifully drawn study of human desperation, it’s a triumph on just about every level; I only wish it hadn’t ended so soon.


Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉

Interview: Frankie Meredith, Turkey

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Frankie Meredith makes her writing debut this month with Turkey, which opens at The Hope Theatre on 26th September. Directed by Lonesome Schoolboy Productions’ Niall Phillips, it’s a story about one woman’s overwhelming desire to have a baby with her girlfriend – and the lengths to which she’s willing to go to get what she wants.

“Turkey explores whether this innate need stems from her own biological clock, a grief she experienced as a teen or the expectation to be seen as ‘normal’,” explains Frankie. “It looks at her ability to risk and ruin everything in her life to get the child she so strongly yearns for.”

Though the characters are fictional, Frankie’s inspiration for Turkey was a true story: “It was written when I was on the Soho Theatre Young Writers Lab and started out as a six page exercise in scene structure. They told us to write a story based on an old family tale or something that happened within our family. It then became the play that I developed while I was on the course.

“I told the person the story is based on very recently, and they’re thrilled – luckily.”

Frankie feels this is a particularly important story to tell because it confronts issues people otherwise may not think about: “Gay couples having babies is talked about, but what about the morals or dilemmas they face on where they get the sperm from? If you don’t have the money to go to a posh west London clinic who on earth are you going to ask to give you their sperm? Grief is also a big part of this play. It is an issue all the characters are facing and has a huge impact on many of their decisions and actions.”

The play’s central character, Madeline, is far from perfect, and Frankie’s hoping audiences will be able to see past that and understand why she behaves the way she does. “I’ve placed a really strong, manipulative, flawed female at the helm of this play and I want people to empathise with her,” she says. “So often we are quick to label women ‘mental’ or ‘crazy’ when they are just doing what needs to be done to get what they want. Madeline doesn’t commit any crimes, she isn’t evil, she’s just human. I would like audiences to not judge her for what she does.

“The play’s also funny – I hope – and relatable. There’s a lot of food and Netflix references to keep it all relevant. And though we don’t all identify with turkey basting, love, grief and desire are all emotions we experience and connect with – so there will be some part of this play that is relatable and relevant to you.”

Having been very involved in the casting process, Frankie is looking forward to seeing the three actors – Pevyand Sadeghian, Cameron Robertson and Harriet Green – bring her words to life on stage. “The cast are phenomenal! I’m so excited to see what they do with the text. Pevyand (Madeline) we found through an open casting; she was actually the first one through the door and we fell in love with her. Cameron Robertson has worked with Niall before, and Niall kept telling me what a wonderful Michael he would make – he was not wrong. He came in to read and was just perfect.

“Finally Harriet Green and I trained at drama school together, she has read numerous drafts of Turkey and was someone I’d go to for help when developing. We asked her to do a self tape and she met Niall for a coffee and a read through. I can’t wait to see what she does with Toni, she has a real magnetism and truth to her performances.”

Frankie herself became involved with Lonesome Schoolboy earlier this year. “I sent this script to Niall and he asked to meet me for a coffee,” she explains. “We met a couple of days later and almost immediately got the ball rolling on staging Turkey. He has a great relationship with Matthew Parker at The Hope and soon we were chatting to him about when Turkey could be on.

“We did a few R&Ds together to develop the script as well as use it as a way to meet new actors. Niall’s energy in a rehearsal or workshop space is pretty special. I’m sure this is the start of a long and happy working relationship.”

Besides Turkey, Frankie has several other projects on the go: “I’ve just finished the first drafts of a couple of scripts. The next step is to get some actors in a room to play around with them and develop the texts further. I’m also currently editing a web series I wrote and directed with my production company MapleRoad Productions. It’s called Becoming Danish and should hit screens early 2018!

“And my first children’s show Saving Peter, about Wendy going back to Neverland to rescue Peter, is on at Theatre N16 in Balham in the last week of October, so we’re gearing up to get started on that.”

Book now for Turkey at The Hope Theatre from 26th September-14th October.

Review: Pluto at the Cockpit Theatre

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Who among us didn’t feel a little bit sad when Pluto lost its planetary status back in 2006? Partly because it messed up the mnemonic we all learnt at school (mine was Some Men Very Easily Make Jam Sandwiches Under No Pressure, which just doesn’t work without the P) but mostly because it just all seemed a bit unnecessarily harsh. Poor old Pluto’s up there minding his own business, doing what he’s always done, and down here on Earth someone’s tweaked a few rules and suddenly he no longer makes the grade. And to add insult to injury, he didn’t even ask to be part of our solar system in the first place.

This is the premise for Moonchild Theatre’s debut show, in which a depressed Pluto (Liam Joseph) struggles to come to terms with his sudden change in status, despite the best efforts of his devoted and kind-hearted moon Charon (Charlotte Price) – and the stripper she “forgot” to cancel (Thomas Lovell) – to cheer him up. Why is there a stripper there, you may ask? Well, because Neptune, Pluto’s next door neighbour, tricked him into having a party to celebrate what he thought was going to be an exciting announcement from NASA. And then didn’t show up. Along with all the other planets.

Photo credit: Dave Bird
Writer and director Callum O’Brien’s idea of presenting Pluto and friends as people with unique personalities, emotions and even sexualities presents plenty of comic opportunities (I particularly enjoyed the shared obsession with Sigourney Weaver). But it also makes their plight a lot easier to relate to, and the play has some really moving moments – largely due to the fact we’re not just talking about planets here. The show was inspired by the ongoing controversy in the USA over transgender bathroom laws, and from this very specific starting point explores the more general theme of individuals being labelled according to someone else’s world – or in this case, solar system – view, and the damaging effects this can have on their mental health and relationships.

The three characters complement each other well, in a story that balances Pluto’s persistent gloom against Charon’s energy and perkiness, and then throws in the Stripper to mix things up. The first outsider to visit in, presumably, a really long time, he brings with him all the prejudices they feared, but also a new, different energy that affects the two friends in contrasting ways and leads the play to a somewhat subdued and ambiguous conclusion.

Perhaps in a nod to their relative youth within Earth’s view of the solar system (Pluto was only discovered in 1930), both Liam Joseph and Charlotte Price bring a childlike energy to their roles – he’s pouting and petulant; she’s full of enthusiasm and a touching innocence – she has, we learn, been rescuing the dogs sent up on test missions by Russia because she couldn’t bear to see them die. They’re a likeable, if dysfunctional, pair with a genuine, irresistible fondness for each other – but heartfelt monologues from both reveal there’s considerably more going on behind the party games and comedy dance moves.

Equally enjoyable is Thomas Lovell’s decidedly un-childlike Stripper, who certainly knows how to make an entrance, and holds nothing back as he camps it up to the max. But this character also has hidden depths, and ultimately it’s he – not Charon – who finds a way to get through to Pluto.

Funny and thought-provoking, Pluto is an exciting debut from Moonchild Theatre. Being an astronomy fan (and having a pre-existing fondness for Pluto) will help but isn’t essential; at heart this is a story about the importance of not letting others’ prejudices define how you see yourself. And that makes it a lot closer to the human experience than its distant setting would suggest.


Can’t see the map on iPhone? Try turning your phone to landscape and that should sort it. I don’t know why but I’m working on it… 😉