Who would have thought the writer who came to attention with a sweet play about a bookshop would return as one of the most scurrilous voices on the fringe? In 2017, playwright James Ley wrote Love Song to Lavender Menace, an affectionate comedy that included a character too nervous to step inside the eponymous 1980s Edinburgh bookshop for fear of being caught in the presence of its gay and lesbian stock. It was a play that celebrated small acts of resistance in the era of section 28 legislation.
How times have changed. The characters in the two plays by Ley on this year’s fringe are not just out and proud, they are out and outrageous. So ribald is the banter in Ode to Joy (★★★★☆) that we have to get a “glossary of gay” on the way in. Its definitions of Grindr, poppers and MDMA are among the few that are suitable to mention in a family newspaper.
