INTERVIEW: What’s wrong with angry? Gay play revived for Edinburgh

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For gays of a certain age, the 1998 film Get Real holds fond memories.

The story of a geeky teenage outcast, who discovers while out cottaging that the hottest boy in school is also batting for our team, just felt very, well, real.

The film was based on a play, Whatā€™s Wrong With Angry, by Patrick Wilde, and when PinkNews.co.uk spoke to him last week about its revival, we were shocked when he said it is now a period piece.

In a way he is right.

In 1993, when Whatā€™s Wrong With Angry was first staged, the age of consent was 21, Section 28 effectively stopped homosexuality being discussed in schools and the word metrosexual was yet to be invented.

ā€œThe cast are a bunch of 18 and 19-year-old lads,ā€ explains Wilde, a stylish 50-year-old in designer frames and de rigueur understated black jacket.

ā€œThey did not know the history. People did not know about Stonewall.

ā€œI thought that was astonishing, that gay people did not know their own history.ā€

Whatā€™s Wrong With Angry, directed by Wilde, will be performed at the Edinburgh Festival from 30 July to 26 August. The cast are actually performing two plays.

ā€œThe other is called Boys Of The Empire by Glenn Chandler, who created Taggart and is also gay,ā€ explains Wilde.

ā€œWeā€™re doing both each day.

ā€œItā€™s the same cast in both plays.

ā€œPeople were saying to me ā€˜why do we need this, itā€™s all in the past?ā€™

ā€œI think thatā€™s the point, we need it in a ā€˜lest we forgetā€™ way, to remember what things were like.

ā€œMy play is now a period piece, I can actually do it as a period piece as itā€™s 1992.ā€

The issues, from homophobia in schools to the reluctance of ā€œstraight actingā€ gay men to come out, all resonate as strongly today as they did sixteen years ago.

ā€œWe had an actor come into audition. There was a boy murdered at his school two years ago for being gay. Bullying is still an issue.

ā€œIā€™ve got this theory that it is easier to be gay than it ever was in certain parts of the country, but itā€™s no easier to come out.

ā€œThe whole process of saying those words to people, like your best friend or your parents or whatever, itā€™s hard.

ā€œIf youā€™re camp itā€™s harder to hide it, if thatā€™s the right word.

ā€œPeople have all sorts of reasons not come out.

ā€œOne of the issues in the play is that oneā€™s family will assume you are straight unless you tell them or are very camp.

ā€œIf youā€™re black you donā€™t experience racism in the home but if your gay you hear homophobia.ā€

Getting back to the original of Whatā€™s Wrong With Angry also helps Wilde reconnect with his original vision.

He wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film version Get Real, and claims it is ā€œabsolutely wonderful,ā€ but it is obvious he is enjoying directing this revival.

ā€œThe character of Steven is very different in the play than the character in the film.

ā€œSomething about making the film was to make it more user-friendly and appeal to more people.ā€

Wilde has had a wide experience writing for many popular television shows, among them Casualty, Holby City, and the one he is most proud of, the first series of BBCā€™s iconic drama This Life.

He also penned large sections of This Life for teens, the wildly popular As If for Channel 4.

ā€œI think it was a phenomenal series,ā€ he explains.

ā€œI wrote the episodes for Alex, who was the gay character.

ā€œWith This Life we had a team of writers and people come up with story lines and you have input, but I never felt like it was my baby.ā€

He jokes that on Casualty ā€œyou have to come up with illness of the week.ā€

ā€œI put on Facebook ā€˜Patrick has written his gayest episode of Casualty ever.ā€™

ā€œThere were drag queens and two gay boxers and one was in love with the other.

ā€œI think we take it for granted that there are gay characters post-Queer as Folk and Gimme Gimme Gimme on TV.

ā€œBut there was a time when we had to sneak them in.ā€

Wildeā€™s early years were full of negative gay representations, such as Mr Humphries on Are You Being Served, but he does not agree that camp on TV is in itself bad.

ā€œGraham Nortonā€™s very camp and I donā€™t think thatā€™s a negative stereotype.

ā€œHeā€™s a type of gay man and I think heā€™s very funny, genuinely funny.

ā€œI donā€™t think itā€™s necessarily a negative stereotype.

ā€œIn Monarch of the Glen I managed to get two gay characters, which was a real skill because itā€™s these people alone in the house in the Highlands.

ā€œThe other problem with TV now is people think weā€™ve done it.

ā€œWhich is nonsense, because weā€™ve ā€˜doneā€™ straight.

ā€œI think there are still issues.

ā€œOne of the points of the play and the film is that young gay men are forced to find sex in dangerous places.

ā€œSo the law isnā€™t really there to help people.

ā€œWhere do these criminals go, these criminal lovers, these criminal children?

ā€œInto darkness and danger.ā€

Whatā€™s Wrong With Angry is at the Chambers Street performing space from 30 July to 26 August as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Click here to book tickets.

INTERVIEW: What’s wrong with angry? Gay play revived for Edinburgh