21 – 25 November

Featuring mesmerising performances from its two young actors, Bacon delivers an intense seventy minutes of compelling theatre. Written by Sophie Swithinbank, this hard-hitting play tracks the highs and very considerable lows of the seemingly unlikely friendship and love that develops between two very different schoolboys. In Natalie Johnson’s simple yet effective set design the action all takes place on and around a large grey see-saw, a metaphor for shifts in dominance and submission.

Mark (Corey Montague-Sholay) appears to tell us that this is his story; he is insistent that he has ownership of it. The significance of his assertion of autonomy will only become clear much later. Now working in a fast-food outlet, he takes us back four years to the time when he struggled to make friends at his tough new school. Montague-Sholay perfectly captures Mark’s well-intentioned but naïve attempts to fit in. Bright, industrious and looking neat and tidy in a new school blazer, Mark is painfully lacking in social confidence, and painfully lonely too.

Then he meets Darren, (William Robinson), who would appear to be Mark’s polar opposite. A knife-carrying breaker of rules, streetwise and boastful of his apparent sexual know-how, he taunts Mark quite viciously, yet he seems drawn to him. With a restless and uneasy energy Robinson conveys the vulnerability and sense of abandonment that lies behind all of Darren’s blustering make-believe. Like Mark, he is vulnerable, but aggressive and dangerous too.

Swithinbank’s writing very powerfully depicts the dreadful sense of isolation that can blight the lives of youngsters who, for whatever reason, do not make friends at school. Mark and Darren’s relationship is not explained by the idea that opposites attract; it arises instead from a kind of tragic desperation. Yet Bacon is not all darkness. There is comedy in Mark’s well-intentioned innocence, and in his uninhibited affection for his dog, his only friend until he encounters Darren. There is comedy too in the mismatch between his personality and Darren’s. But their relationship proves to be destructive, leading to violence and enduring trauma. The Mark we meet in that fast-food outlet is a badly damaged young man. After a four-year absence in prison, Darren enters Mark’s life again. How will he react?

Directed by Matthew Iliffe, and with brilliantly effective lighting and sound designs from, respectively, Ryan Joseph Stafford and Mwen, Bacon is viscerally powerful in its depiction of a damaging relationship. The relatively intimate space of The Weston Studio reinforces its immediacy and impact. There certainly are moments that are not for the fainthearted, and for those whose time at school did not represent the happiest days of their lives, this play may well bring back unpleasant memories. In retrospect one might wonder if some elements of the narrative ring true, but the quality of the language and the strength of the performances tend to brush away any such reservations. Unmissable.

★★★★ Mike Whitton, 22 November 2023