Small Town Boys

Shaper/Caper
18-21 July, Church Nightclub, Dundee
19-21 September, The Botanic House, Inverness
26-29 September, Fubar, Stirling
8-13 October, Polo Lounge Glasgow
17-20 October Cheerz, Aberdeen

Small Town Boys is a joyous, heartrending and searingly intimate fusion of spoken word and dance which seeks to queer the line between stage and club through immersion. Created by Shaper/Caper, in collaboration with Dundee Rep, Gardyne Theatre and Dundee & Angus College, the show is the deserving winner of the Creative Arts Award at the Proud Scotland 2024 Awards. The show will be touring in nightclubs across Scotland until the end of October.

My own viewing of Small Town Boys was at Dundee’s Church, transformed into an 80s gay club dubbed “Paradise”. Paradise is the club our titular small-town boy (Benji Knapper) frequents once he moves to the big city, finding sanctuary and community in the queer club scene of the 80s and early 90s. This fragile haven is soon threatened by the AIDS pandemic as the ensemble find themselves facing a deadly virus, vicious stigma, and government apathy. All the while, a tower of televisions plays real historical PSAs, news segments and political interviews, showcasing the homophobia which fueled the crisis. This hostile backdrop encroaches increasingly on Paradise, blaming and forsaking its patrons.

Thomas Small’s choreography is bewitching. Couples and gangs writhe sensually behind graffiti-decorated bathroom doors. Each dancer performs a cautious, tender duet with a blown-up condom—a precious and fragile new partner in sex and in dance. A young man twists and flails to a remix of the infamous “Monolith” PSA. Hospital equipment is appropriated for a defiantly joyful ball, complete with voguing.  Graceful, vital bodies slowly betray themselves, and those left standing clutch the dying in desperation. The costumes are characterful, from rugby lads to leather daddies. The climax features a magnificent use of drag that is at once hilarious and grotesque, but I won’t spoil your enjoyment by revealing the details here.

 At my viewing, the show was performed on the dancefloor, in the round, creating intimacy —an intimacy used for both salaciousness and heartbreak. The use of (predominantly gay) club venues is intended to have an immersive effect; Shaper/Caper wants to welcome the audience to Paradise as well. To that end, the show features a volunteer community cast alongside the professional ensemble to better recreate the spontaneity and chaos of a typical club. During the overture, and in one scene early in the show, audience members are likewise invited to take to the floor should they choose. This reviewer greatly admires Shaper/Caper’s community outreach work, and I appreciated the inclusion of local community performers to heighten the realism and highlight the fact that the history of Scotland’s queer scene is our history. That being said, the audience participation segments unfortunately did not feel fully realised. I believe the intent was to foster a sense of festivus—community and joy—amongst the cast and audience, however on the night I attended the crowd was hesitant, despite the community cast’s best efforts to coax people onstage. Given the two participatory dance segments early on, I was expecting the show to be bookended by a final participatory dance, but this never came. At the same time, I was still reeling emotionally from the show’s devastating third act, and unsure sure if I even wanted to get back up and dance. A final dance may have disrupted the catharsis of the show, causing too much emotional whiplash for the audience. So, I can understand why there was no participatory section at the end, even if my narrative instincts wanted one to neatly tie the experience together. Perhaps calling the participatory elements ‘unfinished’ is unfair, and is this refusal to complete the narrative arc, to return to the beginning, a deliberate artistic choice? The ensemble and community casts return after bows to dance one last time but we cannot join them. They are eternally in Paradise, and we, the audience who has come to love them, can never dance with them again and must carry the ache of this.   

Small Town Boys will haunt me in the best ways. Sexy, funny, furious, tragic and loving, it is not to be missed.

Kai Durkin