A brilliant debut from an exciting queer collective that touches expertly on dark topics while providing plenty of laughs and a good time for those who attend. 

Rapture, at the Pleasance Theatre, is the debut show from Pink Sky who describe themselves as “an emerging collective of LGBTQIA+ artists taking an interdisciplinary approach to making queer theatre”. Rapture, written and directed by Sophie Leydon, tells the story of 3 queer friends, Rosy, Tommy, and Kit, who are each dealing with their own new and previous traumas which test the bonds of their chosen family. This is a production that I was very impressed with, and for a debut show, I am even more impressed.

This is a very dialogue heavy show, with lots of wit and pace being injected into it by the actors, and it was an absolute joy to watch. Given the synopsis provided, I didn’t expect to laugh anywhere near as much as I did. This show expertly balances the light and the dark which really helps really dark topics to be explored and discussed, without the show feeling bogged down and too serious.

This show is a 3-hander covering the 3 principal characters as well as a slew of supporting characters this flit in and out. Particular mention has to go to Izzy Neish who plays Rosy. I found her performance very grounded and real, and when she played her secondary character, a posher care worker, her subtle changes in physicality meant that you were entirely aware of who she was playing before she even opened her mouth. That is not to take away from the brilliant performances of Sam Crerar (Kit) and Bryan Moriarty (Tommy) who were both able to bring to life these characters and make you really care about them within just a few minutes of knowing them.

This show is tightly packed with lots of topics covered which have universal relatability such as grief, mental health, addiction, but with a special resonance as to how these topics impact the queer community especially. A wide variety of topics are mentioned, but some of them do seem very much under-explored. Specifically, the issues with hearing loss and reactions to losing a parent felt like they were leading to something that unfortunately never came. The emotional climax of the show also failed to have the impact that I think the production was going for. Highlighting the importance of chosen family and supporting each other is a positive, but some of the issues between the characters remained unresolved and seemingly completely ignored in favour of a neat and tidy ending.

In spite of these small issues, I really enjoyed this show and was particularly impressed with the direction. It is a very minimal set and a small space, but this is used to its full potential with near constant movement helping to keep the energy and pace of the show, and there was clever use of the minimal set to create a variety of locations in a moment. The technical aspects of the show were also very impressive. There was a huge number of lighting and sound cues which were all hit expertly, and the use of lighting and voice overs were really effective at enhancing what was happening on the stage. One minor issue with the technical side however is the use of projection. At moments in the show there is text projected onto the back wall, but from my view at the side, this text wasn’t at all legible and I do wonder if there was some important context of additions that I missed because of this.

One particularly amusing highlight from the show that I saw, was the brief moments of audience participation. At random, two audiences members were chosen and asked what their profession was. Both separately answered that they were “sex educators”, which was delightful serendipity eliciting chuckles from the audiences.

In conclusion, this is a very strong first show from Pink Sky that I encourage anyone to go see (especially if you are queer) and I look forward to seeing what else Pink Sky do in the future. They have set a very high bar for themselves.