Manchester’s Royal Exchange has begun a run of Fun Home, a musical based on cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, directed by Sarah Frankcom. Each scene is played out with the adult Alison (Jodie McNee) narrating them as comic book frames: how would she caption each moment in her young life? Being performed in the round only adds to this as she can move to different perspectives around the same scene without stepping in.
The narrator and author of long-running queer cartoon series Dykes To Watch Out For is a lesbian but the show explores how she came to understand her father as a bisexual man in an era and a town that struggled with him being that - but not as much as his wife did.
There are three near-universal queer truths to the show. Anyone whose parents were keeping secrets will see echoes in Alison’s slow realisation of what had been going on right in front of her all the time - adults live their weird lives and everything seems normal until you see it through another’s eyes. The agony of coming out and not getting a response, leaving you hanging on wondering whether you are still loved. And the impossible regret of the conversations you never managed to have in time.
In places this is show joyous, in others the shared story of queer pain had large parts of the audience visibily in tears, but pin-sharp throughout and somehow better for being performed in the round. Special praise to Felicity Moore - a compelling young Alison - and Nigel Harman as her dad Bruce.
Fun fact: the oft-cited ‘Bechdel test’ for female representation in film - are there at least two women, who have a conversation, about something that isn’t a man - originated as a line in DTWOF.
The narrator and author of long-running queer cartoon series Dykes To Watch Out For is a lesbian but the show explores how she came to understand her father as a bisexual man in an era and a town that struggled with him being that - but not as much as his wife did.
There are three near-universal queer truths to the show. Anyone whose parents were keeping secrets will see echoes in Alison’s slow realisation of what had been going on right in front of her all the time - adults live their weird lives and everything seems normal until you see it through another’s eyes. The agony of coming out and not getting a response, leaving you hanging on wondering whether you are still loved. And the impossible regret of the conversations you never managed to have in time.
In places this is show joyous, in others the shared story of queer pain had large parts of the audience visibily in tears, but pin-sharp throughout and somehow better for being performed in the round. Special praise to Felicity Moore - a compelling young Alison - and Nigel Harman as her dad Bruce.
Fun fact: the oft-cited ‘Bechdel test’ for female representation in film - are there at least two women, who have a conversation, about something that isn’t a man - originated as a line in DTWOF.