Writer: Dan Lovatt
Director: Connor Goodwin
Toxic picked up several awards on its first production in 2021, yet this latest tour is a mere five performances long, Leeds being the third of them. Perhaps the reason may lie in a number of facts, notably that its theme is one that is increasingly recognised as important, but lacks obvious audience appeal. Three quarters of all suicides involve men, yet which men? Dan Lovatt cleverly shows us that there is no obvious reason on the surface for a man taking his own life: Andy has a reason (his world is falling apart after his husband, Henry, leaves him), but he is reasoned back to relative normality and the final victim is someone seemingly invulnerable.
Connor Goodwin’s straightforward production for Divided Culture sat well in the studio theatre of the Carriageworks, the small stage divided into Andy’s excessively scruffy house and a bar table at the pub, with the fence of a motorway bridge between. As the play opens, Andy is about to jump off the bridge, but is talked out of it by his friend James.
Patrick Price as Andy does not really convince in the opening scenes. refusing James’ help in hysterical style and offering more self-pitying melodrama in a monologue to audience, but gradually he marks his mark in, for instance, his wryly observational and desperately emotional account of Henry’s departure. James, on the other hand, is seen in the pub after football with Camo, an apparently mindless drunk with interests only in football and drink.
Camo is played with brash bravado by Ross Thompson, but something subtler is called for in James. Adam Cryne projects the self-confident young joker only concerned with his friend’s mental welfare, but increasingly finds himself isolated. When Andy comes to the pub and Camo cannot help insulting him as a gay, James is caught between two opposing sides.
The character who, surprisingly, offers Andy hope is his nephew Patrick, played with the right balance between comedy and drama by Kamrad Azad. Appearing at Andy’s house having been thrown out by his mother for his obsession with sex, he worms his way into Andy’s good books and eventually they arrive at a regime whereby each other’s weaknesses are controlled. Azad brings out the best in Price and their scenes are neatly judged.
The play is an earnest attempt (though far from consistently solemn, with its share of good gags) to confront a major problem of the 21st century. Its integrity is beyond doubt, even if some of the problems demand more nuanced playing and direction.
Reviewed on 20th November 2024. Currently touring.
