Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Three stars When a middle-aged man walks onstage in his underwear, puts on a pair of bright scarlet shoes and declares himself the reincarnation of Judy Garland, evidence may suggest otherwise, but it's a provocative opening nevertheless to Lee Mattinson's solo outing about one man's belated coming to terms with who he is. The man in his underwear is Francis, a spoon-playing romantic in search of true love as he moves through the back-street club scene that becomes his own yellow brick road en route to salvation fronting a local community choir. Just as Francis finds a sense of belonging, alas, a one-night encounter with a building-site worker he obsesses over before being hit with a restraining order leaves him diagnosed with Aids. Such a life and death litany is related in florid terms in Mattinson's script, which references the mundane everyday minutiae of Francis' existence in a way which resembles an Alan Bennett monologue. Jennifer
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.