Venus As A Boy ****

Tam Dean Burn's 90-minute solo version of [Luke Sutherland's] story . . . does three things quite brilliantly.

First, in a brief preamble, it places the story as an account of a real life, told by a real human of an actor, in a way that disarms the audience, and helps this remarkable story to bridge all possible gaps between the close-knit community of Orkney and the squalid and glittering postmodern metropolis where Cupid meets his fate.

Secondly, it shows a powerful political grasp of Sutherland's story as an exploration of the fascist impulse, both as a symptom of emotional damage and as a phenomenon understood all too painfully by all those social "outsiders" who tend to be its victims.

And finally, with the help of Sutherland's haunting mix of live and recorded music, it sustains, through the whole show, that ecstatic note of shimmering mysticism that is the hallmark of Sutherland's writing in Venus As A Boy.

It's wild and extreme, but Tam Dean Burn's performance is a tour de force, a brilliantly-pitched piece of theatrical craftmanship that keeps all these explosive elements powerfully bent towards a higher purpose, and a glittering challenge to every kind of bigotry.

venus as a boy wins a herald angel

15/08/07

Venus as a Boy has won a Herald Angel at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The award was collected by the play's sole actor, Tam Dean Burn, who has adapted the play from the acclaimed novel by Luke Sutherland - also providing live musical accompaniment on stage. Venus as a Boy tells the magical story of a dying man turning to gold. Journeying from his turbulent childhood in Orkney - haunted by the girl he betrayed and the lover he never escaped, travelling south through the Highlands and Edinburgh, he finds himself in the seedy underbelly of Soho, where pimps and hormones and a transsexual called Wendy finally break him.

"True love was never going to be my reward... My reward is the understanding that, for those I’ve touched, knowledge of me is knowledge of the divine."

The Herald's theatre critic, Neil Cooper, described the show as "Heartbreaking, audacious and outrageous."

Joyce Macmillan, awarding the show four stars in The Scotsman, said of Venus: "It's wild and extreme, but Tam Dean Burn's performance is a tour de force, a brilliantly-pitched piece of theatrical craftmanship that keeps all these explosive elements powerfully bent towards a higher purpose, and a glittering challenge to every kind of bigotry.