Beautiful Thing

EUTC’s Beautiful Thing tries to fit an entire south-east London neighbourhood onto its small stage, with three doorsteps becoming the public edge of a very private discovery. It is a strong conceit for a play about teenage sexuality in a traditionally masculine, working-class world: Jamie and Ste’s tentative relationship has to find room within a community whose expectations press in from all sides. Leah’s obsession with Mama Cass threads an older and ironic soundtrack through this 1990s setting, as the teenagers reach towards a future they can barely see.

Andrew More gives Jamie a soft edge, and his bedroom scenes with Finlay Gilbert’s Ste are aptly awkward. The cast is often impressive in its handling of age, though Zephyrus Pettitt’s Tony never quite makes his social difference convincing, feeling exaggerated in conception but oddly muted in execution. Megan Crutchley’s Sandra, by contrast, fills the space. The production is less assured in its handling of dialogue and stagecraft with lines answered before they have landed, heavy accents sometimes muddy the words, and the flat set and indistinct lighting leave the stage busy without giving the neighbourhood much texture.

The second act loses some of the tension built earlier, but Jamie and Ste’s tentative relationship gives the production its heart. More and Gilbert capture the awkwardness of discovering who you are, and the tenderness that comes with finding someone with whom you can begin to do so.

Beautiful Thing by Edinburgh University Theatre Company.