SkelpieLimmer Productions explore growing up gay in rural Northern Ireland through the medium of classic TV shows.
Adam and Stevie are stuck indoors as Storm Seamus rages on, and with the TV signal wiped out they retreat into making their own entertainment inspired by TV shows they remember from their youth, but with a gay twist. We’re treated to skits like Top of the Poppers, Straights in Their Eyes and The Weakest Twink, exploring everything from trying to act heterosexual to justifying why they still haven’t hung the new wallpaper. If you remember X Factor winner Joe McElderry- and many in the audience do- you’re in for a special treat…
With Adam determined to stay in their formerly lesbian-owned rural home and make it work, and Stevie aiming for the bright lights of Belfast and being able to hold hands in public without fear, there’s a tension throughout the sketches. Indeed, they sometimes break character from their sock-puppet Andrew Lloyd-Webbers and Kirsty ‘Allsop-ay’, bickering about relationship roles and how they react to bigotry around them.
Colm McCready and Fergus Wachala-Kelly are instantly likeable, and their rapport with the audience is great. It’s not all laughs, though; there’s a serious message behind it, of the persistent issue of homophobia and general anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in NI (especially among politicians). Bookending the show with The Wizard of Oz’s tornado and ‘there’s no place like home’ is a neat touch; many queer people still haven’t found somewhere that feels like home to them, and perhaps this show will give them hope that they will.
Shame Show is a brilliant skewering of homophobia through millennial pop culture nostalgia.
****
Shame Show is at Pleasance The Green from 22-25 Aug.