THEATRE
Denton And Me
Arches, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
FOUR STARS
Let's begin with some facts: the Denton in the title is artist and writer Denton Welch (1915-1948). His exquisitely written journals - personal, detailed, vivid - are the source and inspiration for Sam Rowe's one-man foray into loneliness and longing. Rowe's adaptation of the book (directed with a light, supportive touch by Nicholas Bone) is almost like a sigh for how times change, but people don't.
There are always loners - not just gay men, as focussed on here - whose temperament edges them away from the crowd, isolates them, even as they ache for "the perfect friend". Welch belatedly found Eric, a land-boy who was in so many ways his opposite: strappingly healthy, at ease with others, able to live in the real world whereas the frail, pain-stricken Welch retreated into an introspection that could make him querulous, petulant, callously selfish.
Rowe's present-day narrator (verging on 30, a would-be writer, unable to form lasting relationships, sexual or platonic) is cut from the same cloth. It takes a valiant old queen called Donald Twigge - Rowe has the character's arch, fluting-flirtatious tones to a tee - to deliver the 21st-century reality check. Changes in the laws on homosexuality have ushered in freedoms denied to Welch, or to the elderly Twigge. Our narrator's self-absorption is, therefore, a wanton self-indulgence.
Ouch! But there you have one of the beauties of this merrily amusing, yet complex and forthright piece. Rowe's clutch of characters - he does them all, with nicely defined individuality - choose to engage with life, rough or smooth, as did Denton, before his early death. So should we all... Let's hope this caringly crafted production has a life beyond this brief Arches premiere.
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