Writer: Colm Wynne
Director: Rebecca-Jo Roberts
There is nothing that can’t be solved with a nice cup of tea and for Colm Wynne’s characters in this affecting tragi-comic monologue, tea provides a chance to sit and talk, to reconcile and be heard, and Two Teabags performed at the Etcetera Theatre in its finest moments captures the everyday desperation of the human heart and the feeling you will never be accepted for who you are. Two Teabags, which describes itself as ‘Pride, purpose and PG Tips!’, is an impressive debut from the Manchester-based writer-performer.
About to go on as an interval act for his first drag performance, the protagonist’s nerves are exacerbated by missing the funeral of his beloved Aunty Kathy, a tough woman who may have hidden her sexuality. Estranged from his family since coming out, including a brother who barely speaks to him, the performer reflects on their childhood and the isolation he feels, but there is a fan in the audience, someone who also wants to be loved for who they are.
Staged as a two-character play – both performed by Wynne with quick costume changes – the parallel tracks are given equal weight in the story over the course of this hour-long performance. Both speak directly to the audience and the Talking Heads approach really does bear up to scrutiny against Alan Bennett’s famous anthology as Wynne skilfully captures that same conversational intimacy that brings the audience into the lives of both characters straight away, as well as the poignant wells of tragedy that sit beneath the upbeat humour and determination to endure life’s hardships. As his drag artist wryly notes to gales of audience laughter, “it’s a rather underwhelming story, I’ll tell it anyway.”
Around this, there are layers of rich context; the family adamantly watching television rather than engage in conversations about sexuality, the expectations of northern working-class masculinity that shape what the characters are expected to be and the stark choice between staying behind to be ‘normal’ and ossify with everyone else or leave for something new but risk being entirely isolated. At the heart of Two Teabags is a conversation about the price of being yourself and the internal cost of living a lie.
Wynne’s performance in both roles is engaging and, often, moving, leading the audience towards an expectation about how the two pieces interact. The play integrates video and voiceover to facilitate some of the costume changes, which add little because with any good monologue, its real strength is in the storytelling and the character creation that comes through it. Here and there, the choices could be tighter; does the audience need to see the stumbling drag act, or could it be more heartbreaking to only see the aftermath? And there is a time leap from the speaker coming out to finding solace in the art of drag, so there is more to mine from both the performative and community aspects of that career direction.
But the show leaves the audience and the characters with hope and the knowledge that a cup of tea really is the answer.
Reviewed on 6 July 2025
