History boys
Lightning Strikes
(2008)
City Lights Theatre Company
The Project Arts Centre, 5-10 May. 20:00 (Matinee at 15:25 on Saturday)
Tom is a modern boy living an openly gay life but unable to get it together. Jamie lives in another era, the early sixties, when homosexuality was criminalised. The fascinating premise behind Matt Ian Kelly’s play is that they both live in the same south London flat, but in different times, yet meet and fall in love. Is Tom dreaming, or is there some strange portal opening up? It scarcely matters, because one is swept along by these two parallel worlds, Jamie and his flamboyant sixties friends strikingly captured in monochrome clothes and flat grey lighting, while Tom lives a future that is bright and possibly orange.
Patrick Wilde directs an excellent cast headed by Tony Higgins and David Ames, and brings out both the tragedy and the humour inherent in the situation. There are faults - the structure feels a little loose at times, and it is a shame that the most moving moment is reserved for video projection; but these are small quibbles. The play has a real heart, and when the two young lovers drift back along the passageways of their own times, I felt a fair-sized lump in my throat.
[C.J. Delany]
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