69 Shades of Gay
Zac Entertainment Group
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. May 30th, 2016
Written by: Stuart Thomas
Cast:
Gary Lamont: Aiden
Creatives:
Director: Ronnie McCann
Reviews
“Very funny… heart-wrenching in places… laugh-out-loud hilarity" - Eile Magazine
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“laugh-out-loud funny, full of genuine pathos… a riveting hour and ten minutes… the audience was not only laughing in the aisles, but verbally responding in empathy… engrossing and very entertaining” - theoutmost.com
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“Brilliant… and very funny” - nomoreworkhorse.com
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"Lamont, who’s been serving up the bitchy asides and hilarious put-downs with just the right amount of flounce, tunes down to bring a bitter-sweet pathos to recollections of the One Who Got Away. Aaaww - the hectic laughter gives way to shades of affectionate sympathy." - hearldscotland.com
Decluttering a living room is one thing – emotional decluttering brings a whole new set of problems. Struggling actor Aiden (Gary Lamont) is the owner of a sofa with tell-tale stains, a gobby BFF Shelly who's increasingly jealous of his active sex life, and a somewhat bruised heart. Lamont's meta monologue, written with generosity and spiky one-liners by Stuart Thomas, may begin by referencing golden showers, but it's the tears of shame that are proving much harder to scrub off.
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The writing is as mired in 3am sweaty introspection as 10pm hook-ups on Grindr. It's during the former in which the bravado slips, and the hero finds himself older, now alone with flat beer and Pot Noodles, wondering where his life went. Aiden is going through the numbers in his phone to see if he can move on, but his tendency to romanticise the past seems to be hampering his choices.