Mark Pinkosh is exhausted. Understandably so. For against the odds, and after making up so much ground on the third leg of a relay race for LGBT equality, he finds himself in the fag end of the home straight and wants to ensure that the handover to the next generation goes as smoothly as possible and that the baton is not fumbled or dropped.

The anchor leg being run by a sexy motorcyclist in black leather jacket and blue denim jeans whose confident and carefree demeanour in the streets of Soho – “comfortable in his own skin” in contrast to Pinkosh’s “deep sense of shame” – stops him in his tracks with such a “brilliant shock” that it ignites flashbacks of longing and being longed for during the course of his five decades plus VAT.

Yet Pinkosh’s chance meeting with this modern day James Dean raises concerns: Is he aware of the past struggles that have secured his current freedom? Is he prepared to take to the streets and march if the going gets tough in the future – not just for him but for others facing discrimination, persecution and death? Or is he content to bathe in the bubble of Soho and Grindr and “I’m alright, Jack”?

Using the internal monologue of his journey from kerbside to motorbike as a framing device, Pinkosh dips in and out of both personal and political milestones, ranging from the dawning of his sexuality with his best friend in a field to his long-term relationship with his playwright husband Godfrey Hamilton (which in “fag years”, he said, is bordering on 86); to the last men to be hanged in America for the crime of homosexuality to the repeal of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which barred openly lesbian, gay and bisexual people from military service.

But don’t think Let Me Look At You directed by David Prescott, Artistic Associate at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, is some sort of dry timeline of LGBT history with little appeal to those outwith what Pinkosh’s batty grandmother calls his “tribe”, for it’s anything but. Sure, some of the opening reminiscences feel like bite-sized TED talks – albeit hugely entertaining and informative ones in the category known as viral – but what elevates this piece from so-so to go-bro is the emotional punch it packs. Made all the more powerful by Pinkosh’s impressive ability to switch from endearingly conversational and catty to searingly honest and heartbreaking at the drop of a wrist.

And when it works best is when he steps out of his narrator/stand-up role, embodies the physicality of his younger self and other characters (his grandmother makes Joan Rivers look vanilla), and dramatises some of the key moments of his life. The closer he zooms in: the deeper the emotional response from the audience. None more so than when he reenacts the stamping to death of 62-year-old Ian Baynham by 19-year-old Ruby “remember her name” Thomas in Trafalgar Square in September 2009. And when after finding himself alone at the end of a chemsex party, he reflects on the lengths we go for a moment of tenderness.

Peter Callaghan
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