REVIEW: Blink at the Etcetera Theatre / Camden Fringe 16 – 20 August 2023

‘A perfectly-tailored reflection on a romance’★★★★★

‘Blink and it’s gone,’ we are told throughout our lives. The rush of school, university, holidays, work, maybe watching our children grow up. Before we realise what’s happening, we’ve moved onto the next journey. Terry Geo uses Blink, an exceptionally moving and honest piece, to tell his audience the same thing in the intimate location of the Etcetera Theatre, after a fantastic run at the Edinburgh Fringe last year.

The audience enters the theatre and is presented with service guides and contact information for Positive East, a charity committed to improving the quality of life for those affected by HIV. The small size of the theatre and the one-man casting works perfectly for Geo’s incredible storytelling ability, opening with his character, a gay man named Jake, feeling the need to suppress love he has felt throughout his life. Jake meets Akida, a Kenyan man who was kicked out of home for being gay. Jake tells the story of how Akida then became a prostitute in Mombasa, where he contracted HIV, and then moved to the UK to work for Stonewall. Together they find personal and professional successes by each other’s side.

Geo follows his warm opening with a narration on the difficulties of life as an interracial gay couple, prompting us to consider the importance of love and support in the midst of our own life successes. Jake reflects on the similarities he felt before and after success, primarily, a fear of falling in love. Is it worth it if it affects those around you?

The play, a collage of stories from Geo’s own life, those he knows, and fiction, proves a perfect format for a performer committed to fighting for HIV awareness. By the end of the hour-long show, the audience joined Geo and his character in emotion as we are reminded again that, in a blink, the present is the past, and that we should hold close those who make it possible for us to do what we love. A perfectly-tailored reflection on a romance, Geo makes full use of his storytelling ability to drive emotion into his audience with this story.

Blink, written and performed by Terry Geo, Etcetera Theatre 16 -20 August 2023

Company website: https://refractedworld.com/

Twitter: @terryjgeo

Reviewed by Seb Gardiner:

Seb is a playwright living and working between London, Oxford, and Manchester. He has written five plays, the most recent of which was performed in Manchester with the Peripeteia Theatre Company over August and September 2022.