Review: Hero, Royal Court

Written for Culture Wars

E.V. Crowe’s Hero is more conflicted than its sexually-confused protagonist Jamie, a married man who seems to be repressing both homosexuality and homophobia. You sense a young playwright trying – and ultimately failing – to wrestle intricate ideas into a serviceable narrative. Every time she seems to have it pinned down, something wriggles out of her grip. More’s the pity, because this is almost great.

Jamie’s a primary school teacher, but first and foremost, he’s a bumbler who can’t help but put his foot in it. His colleague Danny, on the other hand, can do no wrong.

The difference is one of presentation. Affronted by a playground snipe – a child calls him gay – Jamie confronts the kid heavy-handedly. He’s a born bungler; he blusters into Danny’s home in mismatched patterns and a too-small cycle helmet and later, finds himself the victim of a homophobic attack – a hate crime, he calls it, pointedly – after blurting out that he and Danny were partners to a gaggle of youths. His letterbox is stuffed with misspelt abusive notes. Daniel Mays, with his bulbous, bashed-in features, nails a mealy-mouthed man who speaks without thinking.

Liam Garrigan’s Danny, by contrast, is perfectly presentable: enthusiastic, considered and as smooth-faced as either Dick or Dom. From their perfectly ordered kithen (Jamie’s is chaos), he and his partner Joe (Tim Steed) are trying to adopt.

This proves the source of Jamie’s turmoil, his “panic attack in slow motion.” On one level, he’s uncomfortable with that idea, yet the admiration – even envy – he feels towards Danny is muddled up with sexual attraction that, in itself, collides with received opinions about masculinity; the inbuilt assumption that, much like his dad, men should be men.

To tie all this together, though, Crowe rather resorts to standard-issue determinism; arguing that we’re dealt the cards from the off. Jamie’s appearance and prejudices are as set as Danny’s sexuality. There will always be winners like Danny and losers like Jamie, whose wife invokes fate on a regular basis. That perhaps explains Mike Britton’s gym-hall design, with its various coloured touchlines; everyone’s playing their own game, the rules aren’t the same.

There’s a nuanced position, one that’s admirably aware of its own inner-contradictions, in this. Crowe implies that Danny is always running – the word repeats and repeats like a car alarm and Garrigan always stands ready to sprint a quick 100m – while Jamie, flat-footed though he is, at least stands and faces up to life. Deep down who’s the better man? Who’s flaws run deeper? That’s why reverting to determinism seems a cop-out. Crowe can’t quite coax out the delicate position and so resorts to bludgeoning it with a blunt instrument.

It’s a real shame, because Hero’s got a nifty structure, cleverly deployed – like a cut deck shuffled together, we see one side to chronological events, then the other. Unfortunately, there’s just too much that doesn’t ring true. Would Jamie really tell his attackers that yes, he was gay and going out with Danny, for instance? Too many lines drop like fresh-minted kernels of wit or wisdom and, surely – surely – everyone can tell that Jamie’s repressing his true sexuality. A valiant effort, but not quite a heroic one.

Photograph: Johan Persson