Fanny and Faggot/Stacy

Published Friday 5 October 2007 at 15:35 by William McEvoy

Jack Thorne’s two short plays about moral responsibility are written with gritty economy and served by excellent performances. Both pieces humanize characters we might otherwise see as monsters, showing the complex factors behind appalling crimes.

The first, Fanny and Faggot, deals with the notorious sixties child murderer Mary Bell. Beautifully directed by Stephen Keyworth, it expertly skips between scenes in Mary’s troubled childhood before showing us the woman she’s become after more than a decade in prison. Precise lighting effects and skilfully controlled acting by Elicia Daly and Sophie Fletcher ensure seamless transitions between Mary’s abusive home, her dangerous games with a friend, and her involvement in the murder of a young boy.

When Mary escapes from prison with a cellmate ten years later, the play shows us a young woman of odd beauty, imagination and innocence. Her friend wants sex with the two soldiers they meet, but Mary needs to learn how to love. Simon Darwen is especially strong as the half cocky, half embarrassingly shy squaddie who teaches her how to kiss for the first time.

In Stacy, Ralf Little gives a strong performance in a detailed, at times anatomically precise monologue about fraught twenty-something masculinity and sexual violence. Observantly directed by Hamish Pirie, Little captures the fragility of a young man caught in a maelstrom of hormones, insecurity, scuzziness and unspoken emotions. Graphic images pop up behind him as if from his unconscious.

Little needs to push himself just a little more to convey the pain and confusion of Thorne’s writing in a performance that is already admirable, but could be heart-wrenching.