Writer: Ben Fensome
Director: Scott Le Crass
Buff is nearing the end of a six-week tour, following a previous tour and glowing reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe. Its appeal is easy to discern in the story of one man’s losing control through loneliness and – slightly less convincingly – finding himself after embarrassing episodes on all fronts. Ben Fensome’s realistic and economical script is given life by Jamal Franklin’s vivid performance.
Nick, a gay primary school teacher, has broken up with Ed, his boyfriend of six years and sublets his flat to Jamie, described in the publicity as a “buff instagram model”. He is steadily more attracted to his flatmate while pursuing other conquests with humiliating or boring results. Sadly Jamie finds another boyfriend, a PhD in cartography, and Nick finds himself an intruder in his own flat. Another failed romance later, Nick disgraces himself in most possible situations, culminating in a classroom melt-down when a boy uses “gay” as an insult and all the class find it funny.
The last part, with Nick back on the rails, apologising/explaining himself, to the class and promising his sister he will be a good uncle, makes more sense as a temporary response than a permanent reformation, but it brings the play to an optimistic conclusion.
Running at one hour, Buff packs in a whole lot of material – and a whole lot of characters – not through Franklin taking on multiple roles, but through revealing conversations simply through Nick’s side. Franklin, outwardly cheerful and occasionally and apologetically coarse (“I’m sorry” is his watchword), begins the play interrupting Jamie’s television play and then retreating, and the play proceeds by short scenes around a single pink chair. The school scenes are especially effective, the pupils’ responses amusing, the interactions with his former boyfriend (back on emergency cover) in the corridor uneasy, until the final explosion, the interview with the Head (again from Nick’s side only) and the classroom apology hinting at the only false note in the play.
Jamal Franklin, without props except for the chair summons up the different scenes beautifully: his “classroom voice” as he finds ways of deeming answers to be correct is perfectly authentic and the progress from his equable nature to desperate pleading and then to total loss of control thoroughly convincing. Scott Le Crass never overplays the direction and production manager Dominic Patel unobtrusively backs them up with subtle lighting changes and bursts of music.
Reviewed 3rd June 2025
