If you are a first time visitor to this piece you may be forgiven expecting something different. Certainly we are greeted with a spectacular set and a smartly attired, very accomplished three piece band playing us in. It seems we are indeed invited to a big musical, gay or otherwise.In fact what we get is really a one-man show. The personable Johnny McKnight takes us through his life story in song, dance and banter, supported by the feisty and powerfully lunged Julie Brown who also directed and choreographed. Its been quite a life, and the way McKnight elects to tell us about it is neat. We get a series of anecdotes interspersed with songs, starting from the very beginning (inside the womb, in fact, so pre-beginning?). Every time he wants to fast forward he simply says the word skip and we move on a year or two. Thus we get amusing and often profound stories of his failure to win an obstacle race in front of his family at school, his discovery in puberty that he is growing a left breast that has to be surgically removed and a series of sexual encounters with women.The clue is in the title, of course, so our hero eventually confronts the truth about his sexuality and the scene where he recounts telling his family he is gay is one of the best in this piece. After the predictable and obligatory failed romances with men McKnight finally accepts who he is and that life is crap for everyone so we better all just get on with it.The numbers are well performed if slightly unmemorable, and McKnight has an easy-going charm and rapport with his audience, reminiscent of stand up or even old time music hall. Where the evening falls down for me is in its tone. The piece is dated (its a revival) and some of the cultural references seem out of place now (the tsunami, Bad Girls etc). More crucially, however, its dated in its general assumption that all gay men necessarily feel the same about life. This may be unfair of me, after all this is one persons take on his own life. But surely we have moved on from a world where it is assumed gay people cant catch a ball or run. Where musicals arent the be all and end all of a gay mans cultural reference points (McKnight compares himself to the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz at one point). And Im sorry, but the fact that a man cant explain the offside rule in football is not proof of anything! Also, have we not also moved on from referring to female pudenda as smelling of sushi or tuna?That said, its a fun enough way to spend just over an hour, though ut feels like a trip back in time in more ways than one.
