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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

Play: Holding the Man



On election night, I was in Whitehall at the Trafalgar Studios watching the Australian (gay) play Holding the Man. The play is about two boys and their fifteen year relationship from meeting at a good Catholic school in Melbourne in the late seventies through to the early nineties.  It is based on the book of the same name. The story is part coming of age, part coming out, part gay life in oz in the eighties, and part dealing with HIV and AIDs. Two out of the four parts are quite depressing, but at least the coming out and coming of age parts are charming.

Surprisingly for a play that has won a lot of awards (in Australia), I found it to be like a cliff notes version of the book. While I have not read the book, after seeing the play I feel I have a sense of its geography, but not its sentiment. The direction and staging don't help much either, which is fairly uninspired with too many "comic" diversions and a set that looks like a tip.

This is a shame as the cast are great and the chemistry between the two leads Guy Edmonds and Matt Zerimes was very believable and they are two actors to watch in future... Jane Turner and Simon Burke are also in the cast but they play mostly comic supportive roles. It is nice to see them both, particularly Turner, making her West End debut, but I was not quite sure what they added to the show.

The play is at the Trafalgar Studios, where Dirty White Boy is also playing. I think they would make an excellent double bill of Holding the Dirty White Man. Both plays are surely worth catching if you are a single gay male about town. Johnnyfox switched on his Grindr in the theatre and the thing went crazy. It is fascinating to see slightly undressed versions of people who are just metres away from you as well... Well, if you like that sort of thing...

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