Theatre should provoke. And if it makes an audience uncomfortable then it’s doing its job. A very Brechtian approach, of course, and only one type of theatre but a type nonetheless. When it’s about right wing LGBTQI people then it really should shock and disturb. But I also suspect that Scottee’s directorial debut at The Roundhouse, Putting Words In Your Mouth, had a few squirming in their seats and even agreeing with the words being lip synced on stage.

Because we, the LGBTQI, are not a unified bunch of liberals. And this play not only exposes this fact but punches us in the guts with it. But these are not a few ‘extremes’ in our data set. They are speaking words that I am definite pass through the minds and out of the mouths of many a white queer much more regularly than they’d admit.

I was struck by one utterance – one of the characters says that Thatcher was his hero. I wasn’t struck because this is a surprise. But because only a few days previously I was talking to a (straight) friend about how horrified I was when Thatcher died to see her being deified by queers on my facebook feed. Unfriend, unfriend, unfriend. I don’t know why I was surprised at the time. Perhaps not so much that it happens. And perhaps more sickened than surprise. I recalled myself bellowing ‘how can people who would have lived through Section 28 and the institutional dismissal of HIV and AIDS think that this person is our fucking hero?’

I get the making certain figures camp and all that but some are surely unforgivable? And, darlings, these were some very prominent and still-worshipped key queer figures. I was disgusted. And now when we have LGBTQI people voting tory or UKIP, voting Brexit and in the states voting Trump, it’s disgusting but it’s not surprising any more. We are, uh, diverse I suppose. But it is not ok.

And this brings me back to Putting Words In Your Mouth. The words are from three people who Scottee interviewed for the piece, all UKIPers and/or EDL, all white, all gay. And all have the ‘logical’ arguments of the self-righteous and all say things so horrifically racist and xenophobic but so rife and familiar now. But here’s the rub – through the lips of three actors of colour. So, the discomfort of the words is heightened. But I looked around the audience and I could see that the discomfort wasn’t just from being faced with this profound and genius bit. I knew that there were some in there who were agreeing with some (or maybe even all) of what was being said (body language, honeys). We might expect an audience at the Roundhouse going to see a queer piece of theatre to be all a bunch of liberals where the message of the show is preaching to the choir. But no. it doesn’t work like that. It isn’t us and them and that’s the point. The audience was predominantly white and predominantly white men around my age and older (40s, 50s). Just because they are queer and there doesn’t mean… well I think I’ve made the point.

We need to talk about this and that Scottee has devised this piece with his actors to do just that is not only brilliant but vital.

And the performance and the performers… Oh they are sublime. Travis Alabanza, Jamal Gerald and Lasana Shabazz have an extraordinary task but they embody both their characters and the reaction to these words at once – what a fucking skill. Their physicality and their delivery, their camaraderie through the horror is perfectly executed. Although the piece is predominantly the words of the interviewees, these artists break through occasionally, through the written word, song, and occasionally their own voices lip synced, whispered, or shouted. And the power of the finale should wake the fuck up all those in the audience who found themselves – sometimes secretly, inwardly but also sometimes outwardly – nodding along with the racist and ‘anti-liberal’ opinions lip synced in the show. Racism is not ok. It is systemic. It is pervasive and it’s in our community and it’s not alright. We need to talk about it and we need to think about our own culpability either through participating, denial, or our ignoring the fact because it makes us uncomfortable or doesn’t seem to be about ‘us’.  Bravo Scottee, Travis, Jamal and Lasana. You are our fucking heroes but we should not let you speak (or sync) alone.

Review by Fallon Gold

Putting Words In Your Mouth is on at The Roundhouse, London until 3^rd December

Images by Holly Revell