Jake Mace
Please Note: Binge Fringe first reviewed this show in 2024. This review aims to build on the original as we were invited to revisit the show and examine changes made.
The irreverent graduating boarding school boy Johnny returned to EdFringe for a full run this year after an abridged (aha) stint at last year’s Fringe. Ned Blackburn’s highly original, heartfelt and hilarious piece of writing has new life breathed into it in a much more intimate setting. Last year the show took place within a crumbling chapel-like venue inside The Caves. This time, Choir Boys have presented the show on a thrust stage on the same level as the audience, which is much welcome.
Blackburn reprises his role as Johnny and feels far more at home engaging with the audience on the same level as them – while the previous version had more of a spectacle feel being held high aloft on a large end-on stage, the new venue underneath McEwan Hall gives us a closer look at Ned’s highly sensitive, affecting, and throughout hysterical performance. Johnny embarks on a whirlwind recap of his last year at school with gusto and charm, from encounters with unusual teachers, through setting up a Grindr account, all the way to an inevitable rising tension explored with prefect Harry.
These different characters are filled in by a new actor for this run, Harvey Weed, who demonstrates an immensely impressive range and spot-on comedic timing throughout. The oddball ex-army headmaster-cum-reverend character is defined this time with a more fear-inducing tint, and Weed’s Harry manages to tread the line of soft and well-mannered alongside the darker parts of his psyche informed by his surroundings. The duo of Weed and Blackburn have fizzing chemistry as Harry and Johnny, that bursts onto stage to the backing track of a classic Britney number in an unforgettable physical sequence.
There’s a character on-stage throughout which I omitted from my last review and only truly appeared to me on second viewing – the school itself. Its suffocating atmosphere, the endless ambition threaded through its halls, and the reverence of rugby that defines the men it wants its occupants to become. Blackburn’s writing skilfully avoids passing blame of the incidents outlined at the end of the story directly onto either of its central characters, instead lacing it all within this toxic, intoxicating environment.
Direction from Josh Stainer and Meg Bowron is tight and fluid, with a large box shoved, flipped and carted around the stage as a one-size-fits-all backdrop that builds the imagery of each setting within the school neatly in our minds. It’s clear how much fun all involved have had digging out the queer joy that underlines this show, from aforementioned Britney sequence through to laugh-out-loud sections where Johnny’s Grindr matches appear on stage to taunt him.
A highly endearing and nuanced presentation of this story which is now destined to become a Fringe classic. Blackburn and Weed are a tour-de-force, so sure of themselves in their performances that they open up new depth in the latest iteration of this fantastical, brazenly queer, unabashedly fun story.
Recommended Drink: Pair this with a Sherry to represent the antiquity of the school, and a Blue WKD for Johnny.
Performances of An Adequate Abridgement of Boarding School Life as a Homo have now concluded at EdFringe 2025. Catch the show at Theatre503 in London from September 20th to October 4th at 19:30 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Image Credit: Matt Hind
Lamesha Ruddock
Jasmine Silk
