Small Town Boys ★★★

Those members of the LGBTQ+ community who grew up in the 1980s and ’90s will be only too aware that societal attitudes to the “Queer Community” were very different to those of today. Though being a gay male was no longer illegal – interestingly, lesbian relationships were never legislated against – queer people faced considerable discrimination from their families, places of work, and society in general. This situation was exasperated in the 1980s by the emergence of a then-new infection in the form of HIV/AIDS, which though not confined to the gay male community, had a disproportionate impact upon men who had sex with other men.

This historic landscape provides the backdrop for Shaper/Caper’s dance/physical theatre production of Small Town Boys. Set predominantly in the “legendary” Paradise nightclub, and featuring a cast of eight dancers supported by a wider company drawn from the community, the piece sets out to capture “the joy, chaos, and resilience of a generation dancing through the darkness”. Beyond the nightclub anchor, the narrative sets out the journey of a young man from small town to big city, where he finds solace and joy in a vibrant LGBTQ+ scene, but also is confronted by a terrifying health crisis.

From the get go, Small Town Boys certainly succeeds in recreating the atmosphere of an ’80s nightclub, with clever staging and an excellent soundtrack drawing upon dance hits from that era. Upon entering the venue, audience members are even encouraged to join the hedonistic fun and hit the dancefloor. What is maybe somewhat less successful is the production’s representation of the narrative of “boy found out to be gay, flees to the big city, enjoys a pleasure-seeking lifestyle, yet this comes with consequences”. The plot arcs are certainly there, and at times the representative choreography and dancing are very good – the scene where three couples slowly and softly gyrate to The Cars’ Drive, gradually revealing on their bodies anti-gay slogans used by the UK press is particularly poignant. And the interweaving of relevant video footage from the era – including the Tory conference speech where Margaret Thatcher announced the introduction of Section 28, banning the promotion of homosexuality, also works very well. However certain elements are maybe just a bit too clunky – the hospital bed fever dream of Thatcher, and the ensemble dance involving inflated condoms as a metaphor for safe sex – being two examples.

All-in-all Small Town Boys is a brave attempt to use choreography to tell a story of a tumultuous period for the Queer community, in a way that TV dramas such as It’s A Sin and Pose have also significantly touched upon. It’s both exhilarating and emotional in places, but maybe now and again it just falls a little too short of hitting the bullseye in its interpretation.