This one-man play is of a young gay man going to Australia for his one-year working holiday, where his desire to break out of his past leads to him becoming a rent boy for a while, before he falls out with his pimp and ends up cleaning toilets in a backpackers' hostel.

The main character, Sean, has a self-consciously cool and cocky manner but has all manner of vulnerabilities underneath. He starts out by sneering at just about everything that isn't fashionable to his eyes, but falls under the subtle spell of Karl, his pimp, whom he secretly fancies. When Karl sleeps with another Irish guy that Sean looks down on, it punctures his bubble and he becomes less eager to dismiss people out of hand.

Sean is expertly played by Andrew Macklin for what is a 90-minute show with no interval. The use of sound effects helps to move the action along on a fairly minimalist stage. A delightful device is the chats Sean has with the phone operator when he rings home on reverse charges - she becomes his confessor and surrogate mother.

Cast Credits: Andrew Macklin - Sean.

Company Credits: Writer - Phillip McMahon. Director - Darren Thornton. Co-Producer - Christine Sheridan. Script Editor - Fintan Walsh. Set Design - Kieran McNulty. Lighting Design - Sinead McKenna. Sound Designers / Composers - Ivan Birthistle & Vincent Doherty. Production Manager - Marie Tierney. Stage Manager - Mary Sheridan. Trainee Stage Manager - Aoife Lennon. Images - Will St. Leger. Photographer - Allen Kiely. Set Construction - Theater Production Services. Graphic Design - Alphabet Soup. Producer - Collette Farrell. Company - Calipo Theatre Company in association with thisispopbaby.

END

(c) Colman Higgins 2007

reviewed Friday 14 September 07 / Dublin

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008