On the Edinburgh Fringe in August, Tim Fountain switched from playwright to performer with a solo show about his sex addiction, complete with practical demonstrations of Internet chat-up. Now here’s a play by Fountain about a gay affair begun via a Web site. Many details are only thinly disguised from those offered up in the earlier show. Well, if you can use the same material twice, why not? It’s good husbandry.
But whereas Sex Addict was a fairly blatant tactic by a writer fed up with being behind the scenes and eager for some notoriety himself, H-O-T-B-O-I is the kind of writing at which he excels. It’s a solo show: he’s done several of those, both original and adaptations of others’ books or journalistic pieces. Here, the performer is the wonderful Bette Bourne, who played Quentin Crisp in Fountain’s 1999 work Resident Alien.
I’ve long been a huge fan of Bourne’s. In checked shirt and denim, he’s much less flamboyant here than usual, but his mastery of deadpan camp is evident right from the opening line: “There’s nothin’ ’e likes more than a flounce!” Similarly, his memory for lines isn’t rock-solid, but he can fumble around in such a natural way, working the audience all the while, that the lack of pinpoint accuracy doesn’t matter.
Bourne plays sixtysomething Reg, who cheats on his long-term boyfriend after discovering the joy of online sex chat. It’s not a moral, or an immoral, tale of depravity, although there’s a lot of specific detail. (If it’s not too rude, let me put it this way: its original title was Deep Rimming In Poplar.) There’s also a wealth of local colour that sets the play firmly on Fountain’s (and, indeed, my) West London doorstep.
Above all, Fountain (although barely 40) has since his earliest days been gifted at writing about the poignancies of ageing. This play is no exception. So, it’s got sentiment, humour, sex, love and downright filth, all within the space of 70 minutes, and in a solo show to boot. Plus another seemingly effortless, low-key yet electrifying portrayal from the great Bette Bourne. Who could ask for anything more?
Written for Teletext.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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