I've just seen the 30th anniversary production of Beautiful Thing. I saw the original production, with Jonny Lee Miller as Ste, back in 1993 and have also seen a couple of other productions along the way and of course the film version. It's a solid revivable hit in UK theatres at least - does it ever get done in the US? It was a very enjoyable evening, well-performed, the jokes landed as well as ever and the ending was as magical as it always is. They racially swapped the cast, so Leah was white, Sandra, Jamie and Tony black and Ste mixed (though not that you would really have noticed). This didn't totally work -Tony was created as a white middle-class hipster, so there was a tension in the part (though the actor was excellent and hot). The dialogue and cultural references also didn't quite ring true for a late thirties black woman in c. 1990 south London and her son, though Shvorne Marks was mesmerising as Sandra. It made it more of a timeless fable, despite the topicality of the piece, rather than a slice of 90s life. Still I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was great that at least half the audience were too young to have seen the original run. Old Compton Street must have been like a ghost town.
One of my favourite gay movies.
I'll have to post that on the 1996 thread.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | September 28, 2023 4:00 PM |