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A Haunted Existence
The Island
TOM MARSHMAN’S site-specific exploration of victims of the post-war persecution of homosexuals is heartfelt and worthwhile. But it lacks coherence and its staging fails to take full advantage of the decommissioned subterranean police cells of Bristol’s former Bridewell.
The arrest in 1954 of a 17-year-old on a train going from Exeter to Bristol for propositioning another male passenger led to the prosecution of a further 15 men. Their hidden lives, interrogations, imprisonment and the electrical aversion therapies that followed are all elements of the performance.
The inhuman treatment and the personal consequences are described against a backdrop of sentimental and escapist pop songs of the period, accompanied by projections of varying clarity, while Marshman goes through a series of mimes, songs, dance routines and direct narrative about his research into this shameful period and the victims of this specific case.
A pre-show exhibition in two of the cells, illuminating the perception and treatment of 1950s homosexuals — considered at the time to be a cause of the falling birth rate — and the tentative nature of Marshman’s sincere performance emphasise this largely forgotten human drama. Yet the episodic, disjointed and mannered styles employed work against a sustained impact.
Jeanie Sinclair’s research into this period, where the hidden lives of many gay people could be shamefully publicised and brutally destroyed by ill-informed public perceptions and a tyrannical judicial persecution, provides a wealth of material.
But Marshman’s explorative performance lacks the cutting edge to stamp a vivid memorial to these individuals or that haunted generation.
Runs until September 23, box office: watershed.co.uk
