After the Act at the Royal Court – review

Breach Theatre’s verbatim musical about Section 28 is loud. Dizzyingly, gleefully, furiously loud. The Local Government Act, which banned the “promotion” of homosexual relationships in Britain’s state schools from 1988 to 2003, came into force amidst deafening homophobia – nationwide protests, vitriol from the right-wing press, and stunningly misinformed speeches in parliament. So, a cacophony of a show feels fitting. It also feels like an act of defiance against the suffocating silence the law inflicted on the LGBTQ+ community.

The script by Breach’s artistic directors, Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett (who also directs), uses archival material to riotously ridicule the Act’s supporters. The show’s opening number about the lesbian activists who stormed the Six O’Clock News includes a quick-fire rollcall of hyperbolic headlines: “Hirsute harpies/Loony Lezzies/Penetrating Auntie Beeb!”. And Margaret Thatcher’s scaremongering speech at the 1987 Conservative Party Conference becomes a wild, drag-inspired cabaret number with Maggie pole-dancing around her podium in a sequinned suit, subverting words like “snatched” and “hard” with some timely gyrations.

But the real defiance lies in giving a voice to the LGBTQ+ people affected by Section 28, and much of the script is based on the writers’ own interviews with some of these people. We hear from teachers forced to live double lives, activists fighting a losing battle, and children of the eighties and nineties still unravelling their trauma. Their words glow with rage and pain. But there is also love and hope and humour – like when one character explains that the Act was “a total infringement of human rights… and I’m not a human-rightsy person!” before cringing at their own blunder. Such is the beauty of verbatim theatre – our hilarious humanity shines through in our stumbles and stutters.

The stories shared will also strike chords of recognition for any audience member who was in school under Section 28. The lack of adequate sex education, the casual homophobia, and the fact that, as one song recalls: “gays were funny things that you laughed at on TV”. Even more staggeringly, this might be the first time they realise that these childhood experiences were a direct result of government legislation – so stifling was the law.

Taking on the host of characters we meet is an adept cast of four – Stevens herself along with Ericka Posadas, Nkara Stephenson and Zachary Willis – who shapeshift effortlessly with every new accent or cadence. Willis is particularly vocally protean, while Posadas brings spellbinding precision to Sung Im Her’s choreography, which largely eschews dancing in favour of movements that supercharge the script.

The ’80s-inspired score by Frew (who performs onstage alongside drummer Calie Hough, both with boundless energy) could do with some more stylistic variety and an earworm or two. But what it does deliver brilliantly is the music of resistance: urgent drum beats and blasting guitars clash with overlapping lines sung at the tops of lungs. At times, it’s frustratingly hard to make out the words, but it’s always galvanising. A fiery call to arms.

And two years after the show’s first outing, with trans rights being stripped away, and the UK falling to its lowest-ever ranking in the Rainbow Index, this call to arms is more urgent than ever.