Don’t mention the war.

No, not the Torquay tornado Basil Fawlty putting his goose-stepping foot in it, but the Bassington-born boy scout Will Parish (Clement Charles) warning his gaffe-prone mother Rose (Amanda Bailey) not to embarrass their newly-arrived Hitler Youth house guests Gerhard Kleeman and Friedrich Dorf (Clemente Lohr and Simon Stache) who are taking part in a “peace and friendship” exchange visit as supported by Baden-Powell and a German ambassador to London in the late 1930s

As a narrator dryly informs us, “It really happened.”

With Will and his close friend Jacob Collier (Charlie Mackay) hoping to learn about German discipline in exchange for an insight into the moral code of England – a moral code which drove gay men to bury their sexuality and as local rumor has it suicide (euphemistically referred to as “a tragic accident”) – the boys gather round a camp fire by a secret den to share stories and build bridges.

But the sparks which fly are not consigned to the logs, but mutual attraction and growing distrust. The latter stoked by the arrival of John Dory (Lewis Allcock), a trilby-sporting man of mystery who urges Will to spy on his German friends whom he suspects have been sent to gather information about airfields. A honey trap is set. Secrets are unveiled. And the love that dare not speak its name sets friend against friend and lover against lover.

Written and directed by Glenn Chandler for Boys of the Empire Productions, who last year staged the tender two-hander Kids Play about a Grindr hook-up between a suited bear and a teddy-hugging twink which won a coveted Bobby Award as one of the “best of the best shows” at the Fringe, the premise of The Good Scout is certainly interesting and the performances are universally assured (particularly Clemente Lohr who flits like a flick knife between chilling and butter-wouldn’t-melt).

But the suspense is weakened by a mismatch between the direction and the space. The former more geared towards a traditional front-on staging; which the wide and shallow studio of the Grand Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall is most definitely not, surrounded as it is by three seating banks. As a result, backs are turned on certain sections of the audience for too long and too often. Still, the tension builds to a gripping and surprisingly moving finale which echoes Rose’s advice to her son that: “we can’t help feeling the way we do, whether it’s right or wrong”.

Peter Callaghan
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