Tradition and sabotage. These are the guiding principles of The Yard Theatre, a concrete amphitheatre dreamed into being from a disused warehouse in the 2010s by artistic director Jay Miller. Its latest offering, The Flea by James Fritz (reprised from 2023), adds to this rich punk legacy. Transporting the audience to a shadowy nineteenth-century fin-de-siècle London, this production retells the infamous Cleveland Street Scandal, where beautiful telegraph boys were recruited to provide sexual pleasure for peers of the realm. One reputed frequenter of Fitzrovia’s exclusive gay brothel was Prince Eddy, wayward son of the Prince of Wales and second-in-line to the British throne. Bringing together warring social classes, Fritz’s play tells of those who railed against sexual exploitation and fought for its exposure, and those who wished it away with extreme privilege and went on eating veal.
The Flea is no pedantically researched docudrama. Real names are retained, but Fritz joyfully limns his characters as Victorian grotesques (think hopelessly romantic Lords and ineffectual police officers) and fleshes out the contours of the infamous case with queer fantasy. In his version of the story, the action is catalysed by the bite of a flea. Full of tragicomedy, this incidental occurrence, with far-reaching repercussions for rent boys and royals alike, evinces an almost Dickensian apprehension of coincidence and makes the point early on that the social classes are more interconnected than they appear.
Leading the cast is Tomás Azocar-Nevin, who plays a sweetly intentioned Charlie Swinscow, the telegraph boy who takes to prostitution to keep his family afloat, and who doubles as a deliciously despicable Bertie Prince of Wales. Breffeni Holahan also captivates, bringing pathos to her scenes as mother Emily Swinscow and psychological torment to her Queen Victoria. As a comic duo, Aaron Gill (Hanks, Barwell and Euston) and Will Bliss (Abberline, Hammond, Gladstone, God) share endearing chemistry. And watching Stefan Race’s transformation from strutting bad boy Henry Newlove to all pouting and long vowels as Arthur Somerset makes for riveting entertainment. Here the doubling and tripling of parts is highly successful, exposing an essential human condition defined by heartbreak, loss, greed, and self-preservation, which belies denominations of class.
From Knightsbridge Barracks to prison cells, the worlds these characters inhabit are vividly evoked in costume. Lambdog1066’s designs are haute provocateur—Vivienne Westwood’s SEX era meets the high society portraits of Thomas Lawrence, with Simone Rocha’s puff sleeves added in for good measure. The attention to small details is exquisite: Newlove’s leather jacket has a playboy bunny grafted on the back, yet he wears military badges and has ceremonial sleeve cuffs. His clothes offer witty commentary on his social aspirations.
Naomi Kuyck-Cohen’s multi-level set further foregrounds The Flea’s exploration of hierarchy. The stage is divided into two platforms, showing the parallel lives of the moneyed Earls and Lords and the impoverished Swinscow family. The antique chair and chaise longue of a genteel drawing room find a sorry counterpart in a Victorian keeping room with child-size furniture. These topsy-turvy Carollian interiors pervade—peers and officials sit aloft in raised chairs that require ladders, while Queen Victoria makes her sneering judgments from an ionic pillar. The symbolism is clear: these people are untouchable. Red carpets and purple walls are consistent with this duality, redolent of regality and splendour but also evoking the louche opulence of a brothel.
The Flea is a dark jewel of a play, retaining a glittering surface while wielding a sharp critique of institutional corruption, sexual exploitation, and a two-tier system of justice. (It’s a reminder that it’s not just the flea that bites; it’s the playwright, too.) Taken in conjunction with Selina Thompson’s TWINE programmed earlier this season, which tackled taboos surrounding family, The Yard appears to be successfully leading the vanguard for daringly original British theatre.
By James Fritz
Director: Jay Miller
Photo credits: Marc Brenner
Cast includes: Breffni Holahan; Stefan Race; Tomás Azocar-Nevin; Aaron Gill; Will Bliss.
Until: Saturday 30th November 2024
Running Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes, including a 20-minute interval