'If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You I Love You' Old Red Lion Theatre ****

Love and passion are remarkable things to achieve in relationships and when race plays quite a bit of the troubles in the relationship, can drugs help resolve those difficulties? The Old Red Lion Theatre’s production of John O’Donovan’s play, ‘If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You’ was such an enlightening tale of an interesting love story between a young gay couple, what is more, the performances were delightfully compelling.

‘If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You’ is set in Ireland where we are made known of Mikey and Casey wo are at present sat on the top of a roof of quite a grand house. However, the small town of Eniss has been caught up in Ireland’s financial struggles where most people have been forced to turn on each other due to the fact that money is a major issue and as such; community spirit is non-existent. We are soon informed that Casey has stolen money from his own mother and had the audacity to steal his step-father’s stash of cocaine. Over the course of the performance, Mikey who has previous criminal acts against himself with the police and he explains to his boyfriend that he has been the victim of homophobic bullying which has somewhat contributed to his behaviour in the past. There is a lot of excitement from the two young lads where Mikey has even stolen from his friend at a local petrol station; it appears that they feel a sense of freedom for doing so and being together fighting against the odds. You can see that despite their differences of personalities they are extremely compatible as there are moments of such tender love between them. During the entire show, the two boys are immensely apprehensive that they’ll be found on top of this roof and carted off to the local police station which probably is a second home for Mikey.  It appears that Casey is not that experienced with being in a relationship so it seems that it’ll have to be up to Mikey to teach him how to be passionate and we really see that Mikey has so much respect for his partner, Casey.  Casey who was born in South London really misses his grandmother and is desperate to return to his natural home, and understandably Mikey becomes upset, then again, for Mikey, he is soon reassured by Casey that they will not split up. At the finale, the owners of the house return home so Mikey and Casey make a quick exit so that the authorities won’t catch up with them and because of this, they abseil down the roof and down the wall very much together as a pure partnership. O’Donovan’s narrative is wonderful as he has really captured the spirit of the relationship of Mikey and Casey and it is pretty cool that we are observers of how they are as a gay couple which makes us a fundamental part of the whole plotline and the flow of the plot is smooth and less than lovely.

One found the performances by the company of, ‘If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You’ was so alluring and engrossing through deliciously juicy scenes of romance of love and affection, moreover, the voice work and movements were very much pleasing. Ammar Duffus is flawless as the slightly reserved, Casey; especially how we learn that he hasn’t has it easy not only with the fact he is gay, but he has had to face a massive level of racist abuse from people, yet, when he is with Mikey, we see that nothing will ever come between them and they will stand up for true love. Alan Mahon is superb as the rather confident one of the couple, Mikey; particularly how his experiences that he has had to go through in his life has actually lead him on the wrong path, nonetheless, it appears that when he is with his beloved Casey, he becomes quite the charmer and even though it is not visible, I felt that he was the protector of Casey and this was pretty interesting to understand.

Thomas Martin’s direction is acceptable here as he has brought together the themes of O’Donovan’s writing with such visualisation where the characterisations of the relationship of Mikey and Casey was so thorough and increasingly mesmerising because there was so much positive body language and eye contact was such a pleasure and joy to watch, also I liked how differences in the character’s personalities worked with the context of the play itself. Georgia de Grey’s set and costume design was impressive as the detailing of the roof of a rather massive house was definitely easy on the eye and with the costumes really worked with the identities of the characters and the lighting design by Derek Anderson helped create the atmosphere of the cold and the darkness of the lack of money in this Irish town. Overall, the experience of, ‘If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You I Love You’ was a brilliantly engaging piece of LGBT Theatre which is full of love and passionate moments and a good show from a highly regarded fringe space.