It takes some pluck to produce, write, direct and star in your own play. Brazilian Andre Bacelar has a pretty good stab at it in his debut work Foreign Affair which takes at its subject the relationship between a young Brazilian in London - cue Mr Bacelar as Marcos, naturally, and a considerably older man, Gareth, who ought to know better. I say that with good experience. Ive known two of these relationships among my circle of friends, one involving a young Greek of dubious occupation and the other a Turkish waiter. Both went pear-shaped. But I digress. The opening is painfully funny and almost difficult to watch as a drunken Gareth brings his gorgeous young Brazilian home to bed, strips him naked, and is promptly discovered in his exhibition of lust by flatmates Darren and Becky. Three months elapse and it looks like love. Gareth would like his young friend to move in, a civil partnership is discussed, but Darren, played by Jason Carter on the night I went and by Frank Loman on others, is loudly cynical and probably jealous. Why isnt Marcos sleeping with someone his own age? Is he looking for a renewal of his visa? What, really, is he after?The pattern was threadbare in Eden (well, almost), but here it seems genuinely as though young Marcos needs an older guiding hand and is genuinely, truly in love. Andre Bacelar has written such a humdinger of a part for himself and plays it with such wide-eyed candour that you really dont know. Sadly, Gareth decides to put it to the test with disastrous consequences, and the final scenes between them are nothing short of riveting. I almost wanted to walk on stage and say look, give this a chance! when I suddenly remembered this wasnt something being played out in a friends lounge. The whole relationship is beautifully observed and will be very familiar to anyone who doesnt spend their life in a shoebox. There is a lovely subplot too, in which Becky (Hannah Purdy) fights off the imagined approaches of Pam, the Lesbian from the Black Lagoon. Antonia Oliver is simply wonderful in the part, lurching onto stage with the look of a hunter, wine bottle in her hand, but never tilting into stereotype. It is a cracker of a role, and she manages to extract a laugh even before making an entrance, quite a feat. Stephen Connery-Brown too, as Gareth, is totally believable, throwing his heart into the last chance saloon and refusing to listen to cautionary voices.Mr Bacelar wears his four hats not entirely successfully. Inevitably one had to fall off, and it is his directorial one. While the writing is crisp and the acting is fine, he fails to stand back and give it what it needs and that is pace and energy. It all picks up in the second act, but there are moments in the first which feel very leaden. This is difficult to do when youre on stage concentrating on your own part, even for a seasoned professional. Still, it is a courageous thing to do. For a debut piece of writing it is honest, sensitive and at times agonisingly funny, and it doesnt shirk from a downbeat ending. Go see it.
