Queer history is made up of bad news. The official documents record the raids, the arrests, the executions. The rest – all the raging love and snatches of joy – is largely left for us to imagine. In Jordan Luke Gage’s impressive Redcliffe, the writer-performer fills in the gaps of the lives of William Critchard and Richard Arnold, two men who collided in mid-18th-century Bristol. Inspired by true events romanticised into a musical, this open-hearted production gives them the kind of grand love story that history rarely wrote down.
Gage plays William, a shy local boy whose chemistry crackles with arrogant sailor Richard (Daniel Krikler), docked and staying in the area of Redcliffe for a few days. While there’s a little too much 21st-century mentality to their meet-cute, it’s hard not to fall for their charm and dogged optimism as the pair attempt to carve out a tiny patch of freedom in a world that shuns them for their desires.
With book, music and lyrics by Gage, the musical walks a tricky line between bawdily jolly and cleanly devastating. The first half leans away from sincerity and into the comedy of falling for someone (“We don’t need a reprise,” William tells Richard when he starts singing again) while dealing with the marital expectations of a near-hysterical mother. The scenes of William’s mother (played winningly by Rebecca Lock) and his sister Abigail (a shining Jess Douglas-Welsh) wring out the most laughs as well as tears. If only a loving family was enough to tear down the law.
Making a new musical is a monumental task. Redcliffe, directed by Paul Foster, has huge ambition in its scope and aesthetic. There’s still work to do, but our boys give their whole hearts to the story and earn ours along the way. The anguished love songs get a rockier twist as we hurtle towards the part of the story set down on paper, unearthed a few years ago by staff at Bristol Archives: two men, a witness, a valiant kiss on a hand. Through Redcliffe, Gage gives these wronged men another chance to live.
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At Southwark Playhouse Borough, London, until 4 July
