Fringe Review: DESPERATE WEE GAY BOY, Belly Dancer at Underbelly, Cowgate
Photo credit: Harry Elletson
There are plenty of shows at the Fringe that promise sex, chaos and a questionable night out, but Desperate Wee Gay Boy actually has rather more going on underneath all the Grindr notifications.
Written and performed by Fraser Kelsey, the show follows Ollie, a young Scottish gay man living in London, as his birthday night out descends into a series of hookups, old crushes, drugs and increasingly complicated encounters. What begins as a quest for a good time gradually becomes a much more interesting exploration of what happens when you start confusing being desired with being valued.
Fraser Kelsey is an absolute joy to watch. They have enormous energy, fantastic comic timing and a brilliant relationship with the audience, making us feel like we're right there with Ollie as the evening spirals further and further out of control. There is something wonderfully immediate about the performance, and Fraser manages to make a character who is often spectacularly self-involved surprisingly easy to root for.
The supporting performers are excellent whenever they're given the opportunity, particularly Helen Main as Siobhan, who brings a lovely mixture of comedy and humanity to Ollie's best friend. Our only frustration was that we wanted considerably more from them. The piece is so heavily driven by Fraser that, at times, we wondered whether this might actually work better as a one-person show, with Fraser simply taking on the other characters themselves. If the intention is to keep it as an ensemble piece, we'd love to see the supporting performers given more to do and perhaps allowed to inhabit a wider range of characters.
There is a genuinely good play here. It's funny, filthy, energetic and underneath all the chaos, surprisingly thoughtful about loneliness, self-worth, hook-up culture and the damage we can do when we're so busy chasing our own validation that we forget about the people around us. We particularly loved the decision to shine some light on the wives and partners who can be caught up in the fallout when closeted or questioning men use gay dating apps and have secret encounters. It's an angle that isn't often given enough attention, and there is a much bigger story sitting inside that idea.
Our biggest issue is the ending. Without spoiling what happens, there is a wonderfully unexpected moment when another character enters the piece in a very meta way. We understand the intention but for us, it completely pulled the handbrake on the world we'd been immersed in. We went from being inside Ollie's story to suddenly being reminded that we were sitting in an Edinburgh Fringe venue watching a piece of theatre and unfortunately, that took us out of the emotional journey at precisely the moment we wanted to be most invested.
The final section also feels extremely rushed. We wanted the show to give itself another five or ten minutes to let the consequences of everything we'd witnessed actually land. Interestingly, the advertised running time gives the production more space than we felt it ultimately used, and we think that extra breathing room could make a considerable difference.
That's why this landed somewhere between a three and a four for us. We've gone generous - because this is a young company with a huge amount of potential, and because the foundations of something really rather special are already here.
Fraser is a fantastic performer, the writing has real personality and there is a story underneath all of the sex and chaos that is absolutely worth telling. We just think the final chapter needs another look, and the ensemble needs more opportunity to show us what they can do.
A wee show with BIG potential.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: James Edge
