Theatre / LGBTQ+
Review: First Time, Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘both funny and devastating’
It’s a fine balance to strike when dealing with a complex, sensitive issue like HIV from a partly comedic perspective as Nathaniel Hall’s First Time seeks to do.
Hall’s autobiographical performance, both funny and devastating, does a good job at navigating this tension.
The show begins the moment the audience walks in, with Nathaniel in his room apologising for the mess from the night before.
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Interacting with the audience, he establishes himself as relatable, honest and endearing, and we’re instantly invested in his story.
It begins in 2003, the age of Pop Idol, Will Young and – as Hall informs us – Section 28, where our main character, aged 16, contracts HIV the first time he has sex, with a man in his mid-twenties who he met in the park.
Several months later, we meet Sue – played by Hall, except with a wig and glasses – a funny NHS nurse who had just ‘fell arse over tit in the lube cupboard’ at the sexual health clinic (Hall assures us in the post-show discussion that his nurse in 2003 really did say this).
Nathaniel Hall in First Time (2019) – photo by Andrew Perry
Lulled into a sense of security, we are then told of his diagnosis with HIV, with the scene progressing into a dark, introspective and shame-ridden sequence from Hall.
It is with this approach that Halls performs his story, alternating between comedy and brutal honesty.
The comic relief was welcome and necessary, given the intensity of much of the play. Branded as ‘a show about staying positive in a negative world’, the performance certainly placed more emphasis on exploring the latter.
It’s not a comfortable watch, though that is rather the point: the shame Hall felt through his late teens and twenties is agonising and raw in its honesty.
Nathaniel Hall in First Time (2019) – photo by Andrew Perry
At times, however, it did feel somewhat contrived. The production on occasion relied too heavily on high-pitched, unpleasant sound effects and strobe lighting to tell us the seriousness of the issue, rather than Hall’s performance and script.
On the whole, this didn’t take away from the heartfelt honesty of the play: the audience laughed and cried with the ebbs and flows of the plot.
The educational aspect to First Time was also welcome, as we learned about the shame that many HIV-positive people feel, and how they go about dealing with this, mentally and medically.
With its run at the Tobacco Factory consisting of its 99th and 100th performance dates, Hall and Dibby Theatre can be proud of the show they’ve created; a personal account that is tragic, candid but ultimately optimistic, with a message of hope for those with HIV and for wider society.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CW8jfsZIKKK/
First Time is at Tobacco Factory Theatres on March 11-12 at 8pm, followed by a post-show discussion. Tickets are available from www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com.
Main photo: Andrew Perry
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