Review: Broken Boys, Hen and Chickens Theatre

There is something boldly ambitious, if not downright audacious, about basing a play on The Velvet Rage, Alan Downs’ seminal exploration of the psychological damage experienced by gay men growing up in a straight world. It is a book I have long regarded as something of a personal bible and one I have recommended many times. For this, Broken Boys by Liam David Malcolm immediately had my attention, though I feared it was going to be more lecture than literature: too much dogma and too little drama.

My fear was compounded in the opening scene in which a woman (Theo Taylor) appears to address the audience as a lecturer, covering the main points of Downs’ text.

I need not have feared. This scene is merely a neat framing device, and one which works well. What follows is a brisk, entertaining and genuinely compelling piece of theatre, with a strong story at its centre and enough heart to ensure that its ideas emerge through its characters rather than being delivered as a lesson.

Malcolm plays Michael opposite Lawrence Visconti’s Tom, two young gay men occupying markedly different positions on the intersecting axes of sexuality and gender expression. Michael embraces a visibly queer identity and seems to explore gender with relative freedom; Tom is far more invested in a conventional idea of what it means to be a man. Their attraction to one another creates a fascinating tension as their lives repeatedly intersect, exposing the contradictions between how they present themselves and what they actually need.

Both performances are superb. Malcolm and Visconti make the relationship entirely convincing, finding humour, desire, tenderness and damage within it without reducing either role to a convenient symbol. Malcolm’s script is particularly good at shifting tone, moving from moments of genuine pathos to impeccably timed humour – you won’t find a more perfectly timed Britney Spears intervention than this. Similarly, the play’s treatment of sexual desire feels refreshingly candid and relatable.

Robin Halliday’s direction helps by giving the production a pleasing fluidity. The actors move effortlessly between playing scenes and addressing the audience directly, while changes to the physical space happen while all this is going on. Not a moment is wasted: even the creation of a bed becomes part of the storytelling, lending the compact Hen & Chickens stage a vibrant energy.

The play is framed by Taylor as a psychologist figure, and this initially works well, establishing the ideas underpinning what follows. Her return after the story reaches its tragic climax is less successful, putting a Brechtian distance between audience and emotion. By then, the drama has already made its point with considerable force, and having its psychological implications subsequently unpacked feels unnecessary and a little clumsy. Trusting the audience to understand and interpret the significance for themselves would render the gut-punch finale in deeper hues.

The play also contains an odd chronological quirk which seems inexplicably intentional and simultaneously unhelpful. Covid and lockdown anchor the early story firmly in the recent past, yet the narrative eventually stretches forward to 2029. Because nothing particularly futuristic is being suggested, the date risks acquiring a significance the play does not appear to intend. If the intention is to suggest that these tragedies will continue to play out into the future, it feels unnecessary when they remain all-too-potent realities for queer men in 2026. That’s where the real tragedy lies.

Nevertheless, Broken Boys succeeds because it never forgets that ideas alone do not make theatre: characters and stories do. Many audience members will feel very seen in this show, and the significance of that should never be underestimated.

Written by Liam David Malcolm
Directed by Robin Halliday
Lighting design and technician by Kyle Drakes

Broken Boys is playing at the Hen & Chickens Theatre until Sunday 16 August as part of the Camden Fringe.