Who would have thought the writer who came to attention with a sweet play about a bookshop would return as one of the most scurrilous voices on the fringe? In 2017, playwright James Ley wrote Love Song to Lavender Menace, an affectionate comedy that included a character too nervous to step inside the eponymous 1980s Edinburgh bookshop for fear of being caught in the presence of its gay and lesbian stock. It was a play that celebrated small acts of resistance in the era of section 28 legislation.
How times have changed. The characters in the two plays by Ley on this year’s fringe are not just out and proud, they are out and outrageous. So ribald is the banter in Ode to Joy (★★★★☆) that we have to get a “glossary of gay” on the way in. Its definitions of Grindr, poppers and MDMA are among the few that are suitable to mention in a family newspaper.
Had he been born 40 years earlier, Gordon, one of the three characters in Ode to Joy, could well have been that man shuffling past Lavender Menace, glad it was there, but not daring to go in. Played by Brian Evans, his arms unbending, his stance wide-eyed and guileless, he is a mild-mannered Scottish government lawyer drafting a report on the impact of Brexit on the cultural sector and pleased with himself for sitting on an LGBTQ+ working group. He might be more vocal than his theatrical predecessor, but he is just as sexually repressed.
The big joke in Ley’s comedy is in the culture clash between this man who thinks it outre not to wear a tie with his suit and the two men he meets at his first chemsex party in a room in an upmarket hotel. They are Tom and Marcus, but prefer to go by Manpussy and Cumpig, which gives you an idea of how fervently they participate in the promiscuous sex scene.
Mark MacKinnon as Tom is miffed by being cast as the narrator, even as he basks in the limelight. Sean Connor as Marcus cannot decide whether to be horrified or horny by Gordon’s inexperience. For his part, Gordon is hilariously willing to give anything a go, reinventing himself, Cinderella-like, as they go in search of a Prince Charming at Berghain, the Berlin techno club.
For all the wisecracks about butt plugs, STDs and drug-induced torpor, Ode to Joy is at heart a romantic play about friendship and love with, yes, a little bit of fun on the way. Much the same could be said of Wilf (★★★★☆), revived after its debut run in December, and offering a blast of feelgood cheer even though it is about a man who can’t resist shagging his Volkswagen Polo.
In a daft and delirious production by Gareth Nicholls, Michael Dylan plays Calvin, who escapes from a toxic relationship at the same time as passing his driving test. With the same disarming openness as Gordon in Ode to Joy, he discovers he has a surprising amount in common with his first car. Things shift up a gear in every sense of the phrase.
Actively encouraging him in his new-found passion is Irene Allan as his driving instructor and unofficial therapist. She matches him in waspishness and wisecracks and, like Neil John Gibson in the supporting roles, delights in the throwaway air that makes a play about a warped fetish seem remarkably wholesome.
Ode to Joy is at Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 28 August.
Wilf is at the Traverse, Edinburgh, until 28 August.
