Any one who spends more than five minutes in my company will rapidly become aware of my passion and almost compulsive devotion for the theatre. In fact my boyfriend regularly jokes that if I was to go MIA one Saturday evening, instead of telephoning all of the hospitals in London, he would be better off telephoning all the theatres in London instead!
Unsurprisingly therefore, I spent Saturday evening at Trafalgar Studios in Charing Cross watching the Olivier Awarding-winning The Pride - Alexi Kaye Campbell's riveting work of almost perfection.
This story centres around three characters, Sylvia, Philip and Oliver and slips seamlessly between two different time periods, the repressive and stagnant 1950s and the comparatively sexually liberating but still imperfect present. The ongoing theme that remains prominent in both periods is the turbulent and moving love story between Philip and Oliver and how their relationship plays out against the backdrop of society's differing attitudes towards homosexuality.
There are several excruciatingly hysterical scenes such as when a man dressed as a Nazi (played by Matthew Horne from Gavin & Stacey) takes to the stage and appears to be domineering over a quivering Oliver and you start to wonder exactly where this play is going. However, you soon find out that the man is actually an escort dressed up as a Nazi who has been paid by Oliver to act out a sexual fantasy.
Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited, Any Human Heart) who plays Sylvia was in my opinion, the star of the show, although she was almost matched in intensity, talent and emotion by the rest of the cast. The only downside is very much dependent on how prudish the audience as there was one particular rape scene that was so graphic that it made all (and I mean all) my hairs stand up on end.
All in all, The Pride marks a proud moment for British theatre.
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