Jake Mace
Helen Iley’s deeply sympathetic ode to a queer childhood and a burgeoning sense of self is a remarkably laid-back and enjoyable 45 minutes of theatre. Set in a classroom, Miss Elliot takes us through the lives of the LGBTQIA+ pupils she has taught through a distinctly vivid and nostalgically British lens, before revealing the path she’s been on herself to accepting her own identity. Iley proves themselves to be a lucid and involved storyteller, filled with purpose in this verbatim piece.
I’m not normally one to write reviews in first person, but this piece has so much interactivity that I can’t help but do it here – that in itself a very powerful thing. As I entered the room, Miss Elliot handed me a pen, paper and sticky note, and before long we were being given our tasks for the day. In the centre of the stage, a slightly yellowed overhead projector instantly took me back to primary school, with laminated sheets used to evoke a sensory feeling of nostalgia and childhood.
Miss Elliot dallies around between each of us before the show opens, asking us our favourite subjects at school, if anyone had worked in a school, and so forth. We’re thrown completely out of time but totally into place – the classroom, learning objective: understanding the term ‘baby gay’.
We’re split off into groups of three within the audience to draw an ‘exquisite corpse’ – someone draws the head, then folds the paper, another the torso, then folds the paper, another the legs, and a new pupil of Miss Elliot’s is born. She takes us through her experiences with each of the pupils – their personalities, their dreams, the way they inhabited the space of the classroom in the brief while they were there. This is bookended in each child’s case by their coming out story later in life, and how their school experiences affected that journey.
There’s plenty to be said for how impactful and sweet a concept this is. Built on real stories, and interspersed with audio where children involved in the project behind misSfits share with us their ambitions and hopes for their future lives, Iley and company aim to offer not clarity but insight into what builds a queer childhood, the stumbling blocks, fumbled beginnings, and growth into who we are, and who we fall in love with. The entire show is covered in a hazy sentimental filter for the past.
As with any show that plays on nostalgia, experience with this show will vary depending on how you navigated your own personal past. There’s such an interplay in this show between the past participants who provided the verbatim material, Iley’s completely disarming performance, and us now as participants in creating something together as strangers.
There’s a little bit of a samey feeling between some of the stories on offer, which is inevitable in exploring the coming out journey but varying the tilt on each might define each pupil’s journey a little more clearly. The scope for genuine social impact here is massive, and the warmth and sensitivity with which Bullet Theatre have explored these stories shines through above anything else.
The set design and props all around the stage create an ephemeral glow that hovers above the piece – jigsaw puzzle piece floor mats, exercise books, bookbags with velcro, and great use of the aforementioned overhead projector to bookmark each chapter of this story. A whirring, humming soundscape occasionally blends in over Iley’s engrossing performance. We’re asked to completely immerse ourselves in the world of this school, with Iley our conduit to unpacking what ‘baby gay’ means to all of us.
Heartfelt, warming, and ultimately compassionate – misSfits is a trip down queer memory lane bathed in nostalgia.
Recommended Drink: Pair this with a carton of Sunny Delight.
You can catch misSfits until August 9th at Studio @ theSpaceTriplex from 12:10 (45mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
