Festival Fringe Reviews
- Head Games

"This hysterical play contains more gratuitous nudity than is decent".

Headgames When Moira Knox, former Tory Councillor and guardian of the city`s morals, heard about a Fringe show featuring full frontal nudity, she was "beyond angry". Strawberry Theatre's Head Games, in fact sets out to question that very controversial issue - censorship of nudity on stage - in a bold, sensitive and brilliantly witty way.

Adapted from the original American version of Scott Miller's play into English/ Scottish vernacular, the setting is the Edinburgh flat of Michael, a (gay) Fringe theatre director, he shares with his best friend Grace, who is soon to marry her boyfriend, Tucker. She however confides in Eddie, her masseur, (who works in the nude), that she rarely has sex with the "bland, Tory accountant" and doubts his true sexuality.

It's Michael's 40th birthday and while he enjoys one of Eddie's special massages, a present from Grace, their friends - gay couple, Charles and Dan along with Tucker - arrive to celebrate. Before the party begins, Michael has to confront the news that his theatre company is in financial crisis. He needs a quick-fix solution - a naked gay play because nudity sells.

This stimulates a heated debate over whether the use of gratuitous nudity is simply selling out, to titillate an audience's voyeuristic passions, or if gay plays can be a serious artistic genre. Shame that Shakespeare did not write one, Michael surmises. With Grace playing Devil's advocate they discuss men and women's obsession with sex and penises until Charles concludes that all men are gay anyway, including "Brad Pitt, David Beckham and Robbie Williams".

In terms of dramatic style and humour, think of a blend of Channel 4 comedies, Friends, Will & Grace and Queer As Folk, and you'll get the picture. Honest, outrageous and screamingly funny, with a subtle and penetrating sub-plot, Head Games is not so much a play within a play, but an intelligent parody of itself, in which the characters discuss the artistic integrity of stage nudity, while unashamedly exploiting their own feelings on sexuality with free naked abandon.

The serious heart of this play lies in that it's based on fact. When Scott Miller presented Party, the first gay comedy staged at his St. Louis Theatre, it immediately sold out. Realising the commercial success of the gay-play genre, he sat down to write his own - Head Games.

Denise Nicholson (Grace) and Tom Brent (Charles) shine with a fresh, natural style while Nick Smithers plays the bumbling Tucker with a kind of James Stewart gentle pathos. Jeff Moody directs the superb ensemble with slick movement and comedic pace.

"Head Games" is part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is performed at the Hill Street Theatre until 26th August.

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