In Sam Morrison's excellent one-man show, dealing with love and loss within the gay community – but a particular part of the gay community – there is ultimately something for everyone to enjoy. On a simple but well staged set – resembling the terrace where Sam and his ‘sugar daddy' lover, Jonathan, will have their repeated romantic rooftop rendezvous' – Sam is able to roam, delivering his amusing monologue, supported by some lovely visual and audio gags (kudos to the technical team and director Amrou Al-Kadhi for making the most of Underbelly's limited space – look out for a very seasonal image towards the end of the set). There is barely a word wasted in the tight 80-minute set, which takes us through Sam's particular penchant for large, older men and the humorous and heartfelt consequences of his romantic entanglement with one such man that he meets on vacation in Provincetown.
There are lots of flavours on show here. Firstly, as would be expected in a gay stand-up, there is plenty of sauce (Billy Porter, one of the show's celebrity co-producers, along with Alan Cumming, is quoted as calling it ‘bawdy'). There is a lot of well-worked physical humour, notably at the end, when Sam's patience for his therapist's off-stage interventions (challenging his narrative and directing him to face his fears) reaches breaking point and he acts out exactly what he would do to them. The politics of the gay community – the Tutti Fruity if you like – such as the imbalance of tops and bottoms, for instance – are well-mined for humour, as is the May to December romance, with their different generational icons (Lizzo to Liza).
There is also a welcome injection of acidic observation, with the narrative peppered with pointed political comments, notably about the hot button issue of identity (my two favourites – to whet your appetite – related to his mother's inability to use the correct terms and his description of one awkward moment as ‘like a Democrat meeting a non-binary person for the first time'). He touches on a whole series of controversial issues but does so almost in passing – antisemitism gets a brief airing as does gun crime, as Sam is held at gunpoint later in the narrative – and the shadow of the pandemic hangs over the entire tale.
Then, throw in some tasty self-deprecation, as budding theatrical and comedian Sam seeks to cope with the curveballs of Covid isolation (his interpretation of the noises his partner and him are reduced to was silly, but had the audience engaged, as he made us all hold hands and take part in the same ritual) and eventual tragedy. The five stages of grief – the show begins with him in grief counselling, doing well among the gay widows – is amended to include Broadway at the end, while his end-of-life speech makes reference to him ‘being off book'.
There is, however, a bittersweet taste to this sugary confection. Ultimately, amidst the unlikely love story, there is loss and death – and Sam's seeming unwillingness to confront it. This allows for a lovely circular structure, as Sam keeps returning to the rooftop and waves of P Town, as he seeks to avoid the situation he now finds himself in. The wave imagery, of peaks and troughs, works well, and the repetitive structure allows plenty of opportunities for a cacophony of comedic callbacks (there is one sequence near the end where Sam draws together a lot of the jokes from the set, from his use of the glucose monitor – his personal Sugar Daddy – the intrusion of seagulls and his reconciliation with them, the lives of the bear community, amongst others).
And, cleverly, he both reinforces gay stereotypes – regarding the culture of the gay community (a lovely joke about gay poetry readings, lots of references to drag), the importance of sex, the difficulties with dating – and also challenges them. This added a final refreshing touch. Rather than adhere to the standard notion of what constitutes attractiveness – in fact, he has several pointed attacks on thin people, from their sexual desires to how to dispose of their ashes - Sam loves old, fat men - the older and fatter the better (his defence of the belly – in the appropriate venue of Underbelly! – will live with me for a while). And, as I am both older – old enough and grey enough to be offered seats on the Tube, young enough at 51 to be still out of Sam's age range and to be offended at being offered it – and bearing a slight belly of my own (though not in his desired weight class), it was lovely to hear and a hopeful, optimistic moment on which to end. Forget the diet – indulge yourself in this sweet treat – a little bit of this Sugar Daddy is good for you!
It runs until 4 April.
Review: David Brown Photo: Mark Senior