Part night train confession, part club-night fever dream, F*ckboy navigates dysphoria with sharp humour and sincerity.
A performer leans casually against a dark stage wall under purple and blue lighting, wearing a black outfit with fishnet tights and chunky boots; a chair and a pair of scissors dangle from a chain. This is Camden People’s Theatre, and we have entered the world of F*ckboy.
A one-person show that explores gender dysphoria and bodily autonomy, the play unfolds as a drunken night journey on the District Line where Frankie spirals into a series of memories and fantasies.
Written and performed by Freddie Haberfellner, F*ckboy follows an overthinking Frankie through a sliding-doors journey towards self-acceptance. Frankie is on a long Tube ride home, drunk, with a pair of scissors in their coat pocket. They are also in a club, doing shots, trying to ignore the feeling of boobs jumping to the beat of their dancing.
Colours wash over the black stage, making the metallic glitter in Frankie’s make-up sparkle in a giving fabulous kind of way. From pulsating club lights to pink-hued love fantasies with none other than Andrew Garfield, the lighting design by Oli Fuller and Rowan West tells the story as much as the writing does.
The technicolour journey is tightly paired with an atmospheric sound design by Marta Miranda and Gareth Swindail-Parry, evoking DJ beats and Tube announcements alike, and adding an enveloping texture to the 50-minute piece directed by Isobel Jacob.
Freddie Haberfellner brims with charisma. He involves the audience in playful ways: someone in the corner becomes the subject of their loving gaze every time Andrew Garfield enters the story; while two people in the front row become the dull-looking cis couple that Frankie scrutinises on the Tube.
The chaos within is on full display: intrusive thoughts, second-guessing, the discomfort of untamed hair brushing their throat on a club night. Yet, the play carries the polished quality of someone who has a rearview perspective on their own story. The path has already been walked, audiences follow its trace.
But this journey offers no neat origin story, Frankie remarks. While loving cars from a young age or experiencing trauma is what people might expect, Frankie’s life has no ‘inciting incident’ to offer for their experience with gender dysphoria. And yes, they have done the work of self-reflection with excruciating meticulousness ¾ scrutiny that, they point out, the cis man on the train would surely never have to endure should he decide to undergo cosmetic surgery.
Haberfellner’s charismatic performance and sincere storytelling are engaging, even if the delivery maintains an even rhythm that does not always allow for deeper engagement with the emotional peaks and valleys. But this is no trauma porn. The humour in F*ckboy softens the darkest moments: Frankie runs for the toilet to collect themselves. But this is a club toilet, so the breakdown moment (and the storytelling) must wait in the queue.
There are, however, moments of vulnerability that pierce the air. A speech embracing madness and uncertainty in a Shakespearean vein challenges the idea of normality, turning inner turmoil into defiance. Past and present selves blur, so does fantasy and reality, moving tentatively towards self-love and healing.In a time when public discourse around trans and gender dysphoria is, to say the least, fraught with misunderstanding, theatre like F*ckboy feels crucial. Some may recognise their own journey; others may find new ground from which to understand dysphoria. Either way, the show opens up a space to reflect on how we construct our sense of home, in the body, in the mind, and within the society we move through.